Ø     Novocaine is used in dentistry and it allows for painless tooth extractions to take place.

Ø      In minor surgery it is commonly used together with a vasoconstrictor drug that restricts blood flow.

Ø      It is used in childbirth

Ø      It is also sometimes used for relief of pain in the lower back.

Ø      Novocaine is used in surgery and spinal anesthesia too.

Novocaine is usually injected into tissue, a nerve trunk, next to a nerve, or even into the spinal canal. What it does is it helps prevent the start of nerve impulses by acting on the neuronal cell membrane. Nerve impulses are conducted by the exchange of sodium and potassium ions through the cell membrane. Novocaine helps to change the vulnerability of the cell membrane to sodium ions, therefore changing the positive and negative ions of the membrane, and the way that it behaves towards a nerve impulse. As the effect of the anesthetic increases, the ingression for the electrical stimulation increases and conduction of the nerve impulse decreases. And eventually the nerve conduction is totally blocked, so that there is a loss of feeling in the area of which the doctor is going to work. Novocaine is absorbed very quickly and starts to kick-in in about two to five minutes, and the duration of the anesthesia usually last for one to two hours.