Local anaesthetic for tooth extraction affected my eye!

[Onthegrapevine]

Has anyone had this happen? Dentist said it’s not super common but happens around once a month.

She was having a hard time numbing me up enough for a wisdom tooth extraction and all of a sudden my eyesight went a bit strange. After being asked to perform a few different eye movements it transpired that I had lost the ability to close my eye properly on the side of the injection.

It really panicked me as I’ve never experienced this before. I left without having the tooth extracted as my anxiety was sky high by that point.

Has this happened to anyone before?

No! Did your vision go blurry? Does it just wear off after a few hours?

I've had this, it just wore off with the anesthetic

It sounds like your dentist injected somewhere that was connected to one of the cranial nerves responsible for that eye closure (facial nerve).

casereports.bmj.com/content/13/9/e234753

@Golden2021 No, my vision didn’t go blurry but because the one eye was numb, all the strain was on my other so I was blinking like crazy which obviously made it quite difficult to see properly. If I touched my eye I could feel it, but if I tried to force it shut tightly it was impossible.

It went away about half an hour after it started!

@Whattheactualfk Errr... your name suits my thoughts exactly. That says “steps are needed” to ensure things don’t develop in to an infection or damage the cornea. None of this was mentioned to me.

@Whattheactualfk Oh, no. I read it wrong. I thought it meant there was aftercare required but now realise it means there is a process for when you are actually unable to blink.

Yeah you don't need aftercare as it has already resolved. Basically it's a known side effect - understandably alarming for you, but as you're back to normal now I'd think no more of it and rebook the appointment.

It happened to me in similar circumstances but wore off that evening and then I was fine after that.

I had Bell’s palsy so you’d need artificial tears and a cover for your eye if you couldn’t blink longer term but as it’s resoved you should be fine.

I usually end up with one side of my face pretty numb at the dentist as it seems to take a lot of meds to numb me up but I’m also quite anxious so that doesn’t help, must’ve been a weird feeling at the time. Glad it’s resolved though.

Can dentists technique affect this?

I had my other one out at the hospital and this didn’t happen.