I just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced problems with meds....During dental work, I have started going through the novicain about 10x as fast as is normal...and during my labor, 2 epidurals didn't take. I've had epidurals beofre and they worked just fine, but with my last baby, the dr placed it twice and niether took. I'm not sure if it's MG related or if something else is going on, but something wierd is deffinately happening with anasthesia and me...Thanks!
Jess

When I had a tunneled cath removed after plasmapheresis early last year,I was given 2 vials of local anethesia which was 21 injections worth! I could still fill every thing that was happening,this was not good,Doc had to make 2 incisions to remove cath then stitch me up,never had a problem before MG.

I have had a very poor response to local anesthetics ever since I remember myself. to the extent that I prefer to have dental work without it, as if at all, it starts working long after I have left the dentist's office, causing numbness of my tongue, but nothing else.

No one seems to understand why that is. I have a neurologist friend who tried to find some connection with my unusual MG. she thought it may be related to sodium channels in some way. she even wanted to do some more sophisticated tests on me, but I never perused it any further. her idea of doing all kinds of nerve conduction tests, while I am given various types of local anasthetics, and seeing how it correlates with my pain threshold, in a very scientific way was not very appealing to say the least.

I had some dental work done last week and the dentist had to give me more medicine halfway during the work. I also have to have the "laughing gas" due to my fear of the dentist. It didn't seem like it did what it was supposed to. One thing I did notice is I thought I would suffocate during this and had to continually pick up the mask to get air. This was the first time this has happened. I took a bottle of pain meds in just a few days afterwards and more due to the pain. Never had to do that before. Usually a motrin would help. I don't know either if one thing has to do with the other. I do know before I started the meds, when they would lay the chair back, I felt as though my tongue was covering my windpipe and I would struggle to get air but this time it did not happen. I was taking natural hormone treatments that seemed to work well, but since I started my meds, it seems like it is not kicking in like it was. I just don't know about all this.

I haven't had any major dental work in a few years, but when I did I notice I felt very little pain. I required very little numbing medication during a root canal, so little that the dentist was amazed. Plus, I had a very large cavity that shocked him, because I said it never caused me any pain.

Of course, all of the non painful teeth were on the right side of my body, which is puzzling, because on the left side I can feel pain on the smallest of cavities.

I have heard that whether you are a slow or fast metabolizer of meds makes all the difference. They think I am a slow metabolizer because meds affect me way too much. Last time I was given a 1/2 of a child's dose of novacaine for a filling procedure and it numbed my tongue, one side of my ear, jaw and head, and most of one arm. The doc was totally baffled and of course this was all before my diagnosis and hearing that it's on a "no" list. I felt like crap for days after and had no idea why....

debra