Can dental novocaine cause nerve damage?

No: 1. Novocaine is no long used in dentistry. It has been replaced by lidocaine, articaine, mepivicaine, prilocaine, and bupivicaine. 2. None of the dental anesthetics above have been shown to clinically cause irreversible nerve damage. If a patient experiences prolonged numbness from an injection, it is mostly likely due to the needle touching the nerve and not from the anesthetic itself.

No: Novocaine may unlikely cause nerve damage. However occasionally needle may be inserted into nerve and cause the damage.

Unlikely: The "novocaine" (local anesthetic) medication itself will probably not cause nerve damage. There is a small possibility of traumatic damage to a nerve if the injection itself damages a nerve.