Use of paracetamol in pain control in orthodontics

We performed a randomized clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of acetaminophen to decrease the perception of pain after application of orthodontic molar separations. In 30 students between 16 and 23 years was applied elastic separation between the first permanent molars. Volunteers were assigned into two groups: 15 patients in the experimental group who received acetaminophen every 8 hrs. for 3 days and 15 patients in the control group who received no medication. A total of 60 molars were included in each group. Pain perception was assessed at 3, 12, 24 hours and on days 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 through auto-fill standard questionnaire using visual analog scale of pain (VAS). 96.7 percent of patients had some degree of pain both in the intervention group and control groups. Not until the third day the acetaminophen presented a better performance in relation to control, but the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.56). The intensity was also lower on the day for the acetaminophen group, showing statistically significant differences in intensity of pain with an average VAS of 1.13 + 1.07 in group A and 1.63 + 1.38 in the group control (p = 0.028), surtoing on the seventh day with averages of 0.60 + 1.30 + 0.79 and 1.38 respectively (p = <0.001). Therefore, acetaminophen was effective in pain control only 36 hrs after application of separations molars.