Analgesic action of intravenous diazepam

Intravenous diazepam is commonly used in clinical dentistry to produce sedation for dental procedures. Its chief benefit seems to derive from its sedative and amnesic properties. The literature contains conflicting reports about the direct analgesic effects of the drug. In the present study, we observed significant increases for conventional pain threshold measures in response to electric tooth pulp stimulation and decreased sensitivity to a fixed painful stimulus when diazepam was administered intravenously using clinical criteria for conscious sedative dosages. The data support the possibility that intravenously administered diazepam in conscious sedative doses may have some analgesic action in addition to its better documented sedative and amnesic properties.