Endodontics (Root Canals)
Occasionally, a tooth’s nerve chamber will become infected, requiring
a root canal to save the tooth. This treatment cleans the infected chamber
and repairs the damage, saving your natural tooth.
Don't panic. If our doctor says you need a root canal, that's actually a good
news. It means they can save your tooth, instead of extracting it. Extracting
the tooth would be less healthy and more expensive.
Our Doctors, at City Dental Clinic, utilize a procedure which is not painful, as you may have
heard. We numb the tooth so you won't feel any pain, and there is little
discomfort afterwards.
Root canal treatment, also known as endodontic therapy, is probably the
most maligned of all dental procedures, but the reputation of pain typically
associated with "having a root canal" is really not deserved. For
the majority of people who will undergo root canal treatment the process
itself will be no more involved than having a filling placed.
Root canal therapy refers to the process by which a dentist treats the
inner aspects of a tooth, specifically that area inside a tooth that is occupied
by its "pulp tissue."
Root canal treatment
- removes bacteria, toxins, unhealthy nerve tissue, and irritants that
are present in a tooth.
- fills in and seals off the nerve space inside a tooth so physically
there is no location where bacteria and tissue irritants can exist and be
out of effective reach of your body's defense mechanisms.
Here are some of the reasons the root canal may fail:
- The shape of any tooth's root canals can vary greatly. As an example,
there can be root canals that have branches or forks in them. This branching
can be hard for a dentist to detect and, as a result, one branch may be
cleansed and sealed while the other branch is left untreated.
- A tooth may have more root canals than is normally anticipated. In these
cases, especially when the unexpected root canals are very tiny, your dentist
may not discover them and as a result not clean and seal them.
- There is a crack in the root of the tooth. These cracks can be very
small or else in a location in which your dentist cannot detect them.
- The tooth has a defective or inadequate dental restoration and as a
result bacteria have been able to seep past this restoration on into the
inner aspects of the tooth and recontaminate that area originally cleansed
and sealed off by the root canal treatment.
Even though a tooth has been expertly cleaned and sealed, with the passage
of time the integrity of this seal can degrade, thus allowing bacteria to
recontaminate the interior aspects of the tooth.
Your dentist will have to evaluate your specific situation and advise
you as to if they think the retreatment of your tooth is likely to resolve
your problems. They may offer to perform this treatment themselves or they
may feel that the expertise of an endodontist is warranted for your case.
If retreatment is not a possibility then the tooth should be extracted.
Teeth that have had root canal treatment are seldom as structurally strong
as they once were. These teeth often require a dental post and crown so to
adequately strengthen and protect them.
Teeth that have had root canal treatment are not impervious to tooth decay
and gum disease, both of which can lead to the loss of the tooth. You must
brush and floss your teeth effectively so to prevent the occurrence of these
problems
