Although my situation is quite different as had a surgery what I thought was to remove some stones in saliva gland canal but turned out to be he removal of a tumor (benign, TG ) the Dr. performing this surgery, an ENT, severed either the lingual nerve or mylohyoid, not sure yet which. Anyway as for the legal aspect I have good friend who is efficient lawyer, ( successful ) who is pursuing a malpractice lawsuit seeing as how I had to have another surgery by a second Dr. to reconnect the nerve. I have slurred speech, tongue biting, trouble eating, crooked smile, look like suffered mild stroke, lost weight ( not all bad ) and just generally altered. Personally I feel the first Dr.'s insurance ought pay at the least for the repair work, hey, one shouldn't operate on human being unless you know where all the parts are and can manuever with skill. I am in construction work and if I break something I am responsible, and we are talking about innaminate objects, not a human being! If this is permanent, you can bet your farm that I will seek compensation for this Dr.'s mistake, I trusted him to know what and do what he was trained and certified to do. A simple "oops" is totally unacceptable when you are altered for life.
Regards, Mike

On your web page you state that at least 85% of lingual nerve injuries due to anesthetic injections eventually recover, and further you said you have spoken with someone who as talked to over 500 people with this injury. Does this person feel the recovery rate is as high as 85%? I have lingual nerve damage from a Septocaine injection given about 10 weeks ago and still experience the horrible numbness, tingling, burning pain and stiffness of my tongue, right side. My taste is also altered as is my hearing believe it or not. At times I think it feels a bit better only to awaken the next day to feel like I'm back to square one. I haven't read about many recovering from this injury due to articaine... most of the recoveries are related to surgical injury, not anesthetic injury. I spoke with Dr. Tony Pogrel in San Francisco who told me two things... surgery is not an option as it is ineffective for this condition and that if the paresthesia isn't resolved by three months the prognosis for recovery becomes "poor". This I find hard to believe because many have recovered after several months, up to a year in some cases. Looking forward to your reply.

Bob

Thanks. The statue of limitations is two years. I'll give my present attorney a few more weeks to decide if he'll take my case... in not I'll have to look further. There have been several who refused to take it. I just don't think there is enough money in it for them. My present attorney is young and hungry, so I'm hoping he'll decide to go for it but it's expensive and time consuming even though he will take it on a contingency basis.

Bob

Bob

Serious complications have been associated with Septocaine. Long-term or transient paresthesia is among the worst of the reported side effects of Septocaine which occurs much more frequently than with lidocaine.

It should be noted that almost all recorded cases of long term numbness or parasthesia in a dental setting are associated with a mandibular nerve block type injection and simple infiltration injections are generally thought to be immune from such complications. For this reason many dentists have abandoned using articaine for mandibular nerve blocks.

Local anesthetic injections have a very small risk of causing nerve injury, anywhere from 1:26000 to 1:158000. It will occur once in a dentist's 35 year career stastically.

Please tell us all how to do a root canal on a hot molar without giving an injection. The risk of death from general anesthesia is around 1:350000 and the cost would be above 8000 for a 2 hour hospital visit. Risks are there. Please tell practicing dentists how to practice to avoid 100% of all nerve injuries and we will happily take the advice and apply it on Monday morning.

Just tell us what to do and we'll take your advice.

Bob

One more thing. Don't you think a dentist should be required to give informed consent before an anesthetic injection is given? You say the risks are there, but they are NOT KNOWN by the general public (ie. patient).

To be clear, when talking about statistics I am only referring to lower mandibular nerve blocks given with articaine. When discussing this you always lump all nerve blocks using all anesthetics in with the 1 in 26,000 figure. In point of truth, the figure for paresthesias being caused by lower mandibular nerve blocks with articaine is 1 in 21, a figure that demands informed consent if not an outright ban on the procedure when articaine is used. This figure is from Septodont's own study.

http://www.nodentalpain.com/ArticaineParesthesia.html

Since Septodont has included a warning about paresthesias in with their package insert, don't you think a dentist should inform the patient of the risk? Septodont has certainly informed the dentist of it, so why not the patient? There is no reason not to unless one wishes to hide the truth from the patient. Given the danger of the this procedure it is unethical in the extreme to withold informed consent. I look forward to your response.

Bob

So do you or do you not think it adivsable for a dentist to give informed consent when giving lower mandibular nerve blocks using aricaine? Your own personal statistics are the exception rather than the norm, although try telling that to the patients who suffered with the injury. It is horrific, akin to unpeakable torture, to those who suffer. So I ask you, is it unreasonable to require informed consent for this procedure?

Bob

Sorry to butt in here..but why, oh why, don't you have any statistics on your "rates of injury"? You 'think' three of your patients have suffered lingual nerve injuries after they have seen you? Haven't you said often on this forum that these injuries occur only once in each 'career'..but you have had three incidences that you can recall of lingual nerve paresthesia in your own career?

The paresthesia of all three of your patients with lingual nerve damage resolved "in the past l7 years of doing this". Can you explain what you did to help those three patients through their recovery and how do you know that the paresthesia was resolved?

I'm sorry Mav...but I think it's unacceptable that it appears that even dentists don't keep track of the number of people who have left their offices with nerve injuries.

Post #98
http://www.sciential.net/dcforum/DCForumID1/194.html#98

Neco Cockburn, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, March 24, 2008

Several hundred "rogue imposters" may be providing dental care in Ontario, according to the regulating body that oversees the province's dentists.

Irwin Fefergrad, registrar at the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario, said more co-ordination with government is needed to spread awareness of illegal practitioners, who often set up in cities with large immigrant populations, such as Ottawa and Toronto.

"This is not anybody with a golden heart or a bleeding heart. These are people that are actually running a cash business -- serious cash -- and harming the public," he said.

The public often doesn't know whether the person is a real dentist, Mr. Fefergrad said.

"The only time we ever get information on this underground economy that might be building is when there's some harm done."

He said problems that have occurred at unlicensed offices range from infection to PARESTHESIA, a type of paralysis.

more of this article... http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=2801c8a9-3862-463d-b845-e783f2e3cc93&k=25439