**1. Introduction**

According to Gillam [1], one of the challenges facing the clinician when examining a patient complaining of different types of dental pain is that the patient may be suffering from both physical or emotional discomfort. This may be very traumatic to them in terms of being unable to cope, resulting in the loss of sleep and work as well as in an economic cost to the health care provider [2–4]. This in turn may present difficulties for the clinician in determining a correct diagnosis of the cause of the patient's pain. The importance of differentiating these different types of oro-facial pain based on the patient's presenting clinical features and a thorough medical and dental history is a key to the successful management of the patient's pain [1]. Furthermore, it should be recognized that pain is subjective in nature and is pertinent to the individual's own perception of pain, which may also be influenced by several factors such as a previous history of pain, anticipation, or fear of the proposed dental

treatment. Although dentine hypersensitivity (DH) may not be as severe as some of the other oro-facial conditions, it is a relatively common condition, which has an impact on the individual patient's well-being and quality of life (QoL) [5]. There have been concerns regarding the awareness and confidence of clinicians to diagnose and successfully manage DH [1, 6, 7]. To address these concerns, several management and preventive strategies have been suggested to provide practical guidelines for clinicians [6, 8–10]. These guidelines include identifying the cause of the patient's presenting problem based on a good medical and dental history with a thorough clinical examination using the appropriate diagnostic tests when distinguishing DH from other forms of oro-facial pain. Recommendations for the management of DH also included the importance of removing the aetiological and pre-disposing features to prevent further episodes of pain associated with DH to alleviate the impact on the patient's QoL. The use and/or recommendations of the appropriate in-office (professionally applied) or over the counter (OTC; at-home) products and/or techniques depending on the severity of the problem should also be included in the clinician's management strategy. The importance of a management plan that includes both a preventive strategy to reduce further damage to both the hard and soft tissues of the mouth, and with a monitoring component within the plan cannot be overstated [10]. This chapter, therefore, covers the relevant aspects for diagnosing and managing DH with an emphasis on adopting a preventive strategy that will attempt to minimize or eliminate the problem, thereby enabling the patient to have an improved QoL.
