Originally Posted by canklecat

The lidocaine injection would last an hour or two. However if it worked at all for awhile, you might consider discussing with your doctors some other options, including local injection of anti-inflammatories, or perhaps a course of oral anti-inflammatories.

You might also try some over the counter anti-inflammatories. While aspirin is generally a good go-to for this sort of thing, I can't take NSAIDs long term due to an auto-immune disorder. If I take aspirin or ibuprofen daily I wind up with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. So I take resveratrol (mostly from grapes, sometimes other plants, orally and in topical analgesic cream -- Ted's Pain Cream), bromelain (from pineapples, mostly good for bronchial and upper respiratory inflammation) and bee propolis (mostly for sinus inflammation).

Incidentally -- not entirely related -- a few years ago while waiting at an urgent care dental clinic to have a tooth pulled, I had a severe headache. It was unrelated to the tooth issue -- the tooth was dead and cracked, no nerves to cause problems, but I was concerned about a gum infection. However since childhood I've had severe headaches, variously diagnosed as migraines or cluster headaches. Like most of those, this was on one side of the head and felt like a corkscrew in my right eyeball, with pain radiating along the entire right side of the head toward the base of the neck and shoulder.

The dentist couldn't get to me immediately, but when the nurse told him I was in severe pain he got me into the chair just long enough to inject lidocaine, xylocaine, whatever they used. When I described the pain and he took a look at the tooth he agreed the headache probably wasn't related to the tooth. But when I mentioned the headache was dissipating he suggested injecting a bit more of the analgesic elsewhere in the gums. I agreed. The headache completely vanished within minutes. The entire right side of my head was numbed, without actually injecting xylocaine/lidocaine anywhere other than the gums.

The dentist suggested I be evaluated for trigeminal neuralgia. While he was cautious because it wasn't his specialty, dealing with the trigeminal and vagus nerve complications *was* part of his specialty for pain control.

After pulling the tooth and sending me home with a small supply of hydrocodone, I still felt so good I stopped along the way to check out a springtime street carnival. Unfortunately the lidocaine/xylocaine wore off after an hour or so and I was in misery again. So I headed home and popped one of those hydrocodones -- which wasn't nearly as effective as the local anesthetic injection.

Anyway, the point of this anecdote -- sometimes the actual source of pains may not be obvious or due to problems in the immediate area where we feel the pain. "Referred pain" can come from injury, illness or damage to other parts of the body. Sort of like that itch we can't scratch until we figure out to scratch where we don't actually feel the itch.