Non-Opioid EXPAREL® Provided for Oral Surgery Patients at Tampa Surgical Arts

At Tampa Surgical Arts, we’re proud to offer EXPAREL® to make the postoperative process following a surgery procedure easier than ever. This long-acting local anesthetic is particularly useful for oral surgery patients, and will be expertly administered by Dr. Manik S. Bedi, our renowned oral surgeon.

What Is EXPAREL?

At the end of most oral surgery procedures, an anesthetic called Bupivacaine is administered to provide up to eight hours of pain relief. EXPAREL is specially formulated to slowly release Bupivacaine into the soft tissues of the surgical site over the course of 72 hours. This ensures your pain relief lasts longer than the typical local anesthetic and that you will have reduced need for narcotic pain medication as you’re recovering.

How Is EXPAREL Administered?

Intended for single-dose only, EXPAREL is administered during your procedure, while you’re still under sedation, to ensure your postsurgical pain is at a manageable level when you wake up. It is injected right into your surgical site. At Tampa Surgical Arts, we use EXPAREL most commonly in oral surgery procedures, including wisdom teeth removal.

What Are the Benefits of EXPAREL?

The main benefit of EXPAREL is that it reduces, or even eliminates, the need for opioid pain treatment following surgery. Because the medication is slowly released over the course of three days following a surgical procedure, when pain is typically at its peak, patients can usually rely on over-the-counter pain relievers to control their pain once EXPAREL wears off. Opioid pain treatment is highly addictive and the side effects are generally very unpleasant, which is why many patients nowadays are interested in non-opioid options that still offer significant pain relief.

EXPAREL is especially beneficial for oral surgery patients, as many of them are children or teenagers and their introduction to opioid medication is from these procedures. Parents are concerned about their children being prescribed this type of addictive medication, so they are pleased to learn Dr. Bedi offers EXPAREL for his patients.

EXPAREL at Tampa Surgical Arts

Dr. Bedi at Tampa Surgical Arts is uniquely qualified to offer a truly opioid-free experience for his patients, including opioid-free sedation. He is a triple-board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon, making him one of the few dental specialists in the Tampa Bay Area who can safely administer other medications during sedation (e.g. ketamine, propofol) and avoid highly addictive medications, such as fentanyl. If you are interested in an opioid-free oral surgery experience using EXPAREL, please contact Tampa Surgical Arts today.