Pain from dentistry is controlled with various techniques, including local analgesia. Aim: This study investigates distraction, using a manually stimulated distraction device, Isoflex® (MSDD), for pain and anxiety reduction. Subjects were in different practices, diagnosed needing dentistry under local analgesia (LA), on both sides of the mouth. LA was injected on left or right sides at different times. Patients were their own symmetrical split mouth controls. One side was with MSDD, while opposite sides were without. The same dentist gave the LA's using identical techniques. 100 subjects provided data: age, gender, type of injection, site, period of last injection (POLI) for each. 46 used MSDD first, and 54 used MSDD with contralateral second LA injections. Using nominal and ordinal VAS scales, patients recorded pain and anxiety each time after receiving injections. Pooled results were analyzed. Results: Significant reductions of pain and anxiety during LA injections (p<0.001, paired t-test) were found with MSDD. No correlation of pain reduction with age, gender, upper or lower jaw, with or without MSDD. There was reduction of pain and anxiety for subjects who had recently administered injection POLI scores, attributed to recent memory of pain (p<0.05). Anxiety reduction for POLI scores over one week were non-significant. Melzack's Gate Theory of Pain explains in part this phenomenon. MSDD is effective at reducing pain and anxiety experienced with local regional analgesic injections in the practice of dentistry.