Mental blocks

Today I had to extract lower 3-3 for the insertion of a full lower immediate denture. I was hesitant to give bilateral IDBs and asking around it seemed as though the other dentists would be as well. I got around it by giving bilateral mental blocks and lingual infiltrations. There were no premolars for intraoral landmarks so I palpated extraorally then intraorally to find the mental foramen. I retracted the soft tissues with my finger to have an intraoral reference to penetrate the mucosa. Lingual infiltrations I placed around the lateral incisor area and it seemed to be sufficient to anaesthetise one tooth either side. The OPG also helped in approximating the position distal to the canines.