“Can teeth scaling be done under anesthesia?”

Great question. The answer is YES. When you mention anesthesia, to a dentist it means local anesthetic ("novocaine"). If you mean being "asleep," that means sedation. I have patients who require both. All dental offices can apply anesthetics ("numb you up"). Not all provide sedation, although many offer nitrous oxide. Ask your dentist if they have the ability to provide the service you require to scale your teeth. If they don't provide the anesthesia, then I suggest finding an office that does. It is important to maintain good periodontal health in order to protect your heart, lungs, brain, and protect against diabetes and certain cancers.  
Hope this helps.

Steven Chamish, DDS

Yes, scaling can be done under anesthesia. Just discuss this with your dentist and you can decide what level of sedation is right for you.


Hope this helps,

Jossi Stokes, DDS

Very often, a deep scaling will be done with local anesthesia and sometimes nitrous oxide.

Totally

It doesn't sound like whoever you saw did a very good job of explaining "scaling". Normal healthy teeth cleaning typically involves scaling or scraping of the teeth with either hand instruments or a very gentle fast vibrating (ultrasonic scaler) instrument. Typically this part of the procedure is not painful in a healthy mouth. If gums are unhealthy or the debris is a long way beneath the level of the gums it can be less comfortable having the debris removed. Typically Scaling and Root planing is for unhealthy mouths and is normally done using local anesthetic to allow the hygienist or dentist to be as thorough and aggressive and necessary to remove all the unwanted stuff from under the gums. Many times the correct use of topical anesthetic will suffice. General anesthetic or oral conscious sedation would be overkill for most patients.