Hypoesthesia after an inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) block does not commonly occur, but some cases are reported. The causes of hypoesthesia include a needle injury or toxicity of local anesthetic agents, and the incidence itself can cause stress to both dentists and patients. This case presents a hypoesthesia on mental nerve area followed by IAN block anesthesia with 2% lidocaine. Prescription of steroids for a week was performed and periodic follow up was done. After 1 wk, the symptoms got much better and after 4 mon, hypoesthesia completely disappeared. During this healing period, only early steroid medication was prescribed. In most cases, hypoesthesia is resolved within 6 mon, but being aware of etiology and the treatment options of hypoesthesia is important. Because the hypoesthesia caused by IAN block anesthesia is a mild to moderate nerve injury, early detection of symptom and prescription of steroids could be helpful for improvement of the hypoesthesia.

The aims of the study were to evaluate the effect of epinephrine-containing local anesthetics on pulpal blood flow (PBF) and to investigate its effect on cavity preparation-induced PBF change. PBF was recorded using a laser Doppler flowmeter (Perimed Co., Sweden) from canines of nine cats under general anesthesia before and after injection of local anesthetics and after cavity preparation. 2% lidocaine hydrochloride with 1 : 100,000 epinephrine was administered by local infiltration given apical to the mandibular canine at the vestibular area and the same volume of isotonic saline was injected on the contralateral tooth as a control. A round carbide bur was operated at slow speed with isotonic saline flushing to grind spherical cavities with increasing depth through the enamel and into the dentin on both teeth. The obtained data was analyzed with paired t-test.

Cavity preparation caused significant increase of PBF (n = 9, p < 0.05). Local infiltration of lidocaine with epinephrine resulted in decreases of PBF (n = 9, p < 0.05), whereas there was no significant change of PBF with the physiologic saline as a control. Cavity preparation on tooth anesthetized with lidocaine with epinephrine caused significantly less increase of PBF than in control tooth (p < 0.05).

Therefore, the result of the present study demonstrates that local infiltration of 2% lidocaine with 1 : 100,000 epinephrine effectively reduces PBF increase caused by cavity preparation.