UA Emergency Medicine resident Georgia Perrian, MD, PGY-2, received a $1,000 seed grant from the Arizona College of Emergency Physicians for her research, “Studying the Effects of Dexamethasone in Dental Pain.” Collaborating PIs are Dale Woolridge, MD, PhD, and Noah Tolby, MD.
Research summary:
An individual’s quality of life can be seriously affected by the severity of dental pain. The emergency department is a common place to find those seeking relief from their dental pain - often times seeking removal of the affected tooth, dental anesthetic injections or oral pain medications. The emergency department treatment of this infection includes pain control, antibiotics and dental referral for ultimate management of the infection.
The purpose of our study is to investigate whether the addition of oral steroids will alter the time until patient experiences improvement in their dental pain. Steroids are a commonly used anti-inflammatory that is used in the ED for the purpose of pain relief from throat pain. As the pain from periapical infection is thought to be largely from the pressure, we speculate that the anti-inflammatory effects of steroids may decrease the inflammation, thus the pressure, and may ultimately lead to a decrease in time until the patient experiences some relief from their pain.