What is it root canal procedure?
A root canal procedure is a dental method used to treat an infection in the core of a tooth and is meant to save the otherwise badly carious, decayed or infected tooth. Practically, the nerve and pulp are pulled out from the tooth and the interior is cleaned and sealed. The absence of the nerve will not affect the proper functioning of the tooth.
Usually, people consider root canal procedures painful and they tend to avoid them, postponing until the last moment. But actually, with nowadays techniques and the right equipment the procedure itself is easily tolerable. And they should know that the more they wait, the more complicated the intervention gets, more painful and more expensive. The more damaged the tooth is, the higher the cost of the procedure and of the type of dental restoration performed after.
The success rate of the root canal procedures is high, over 95% and teeth treated like this once, can last for a lifetime. After the intervention, the tooth will be covered with a matching color crown or filling and won’t be visible to others.
Why and when is root canal procedure necessary?
The tooth’s nerve gets infected because of deep decay, cracks or chips in it, multiple dental interventions on it, or face trauma. Sometimes, bacteria makes its way within the pulp chamber and can cause an abscess, an infection of the tooth, technically a pocket full of pus on the gums. This is accompanied by swelling of the face, dental bone loss, severe pain and requires a root canal procedure.
Sometimes, there are no symptoms that forego the root canal infection but generally there are signs such as: extremely serious toothache pain whenever chewing or pressing, constantly sensitivity or even pain to hot or cold, darkening of the tooth, swelling face and nearby gums.
What happens after the root canal procedure?
The tissue inflammation around the tooth will make it sensitive for a few days. If infection and pain were installed before root canal, the sensitivity or discomfort are more annoying. They can be overcome with painkillers available in drugstores. Usually, patients return to their typical life right the next day after they had the intervention.
Regularly scheduled visits to the oral health clinic and good habits like brushing and flossing twice a day can prevent another root canal procedure in the future.
Sometimes complications occur, despite the dentist efforts to clean and seal the tooth and new infections might appear, mainly from undetected cracks in the root of the tooth or defective dental restoration. There are cases when things can be controlled by adequate treatment, but in other cases endodontic surgery is the solution, meaning a root-end resection.
There is only one alternative to a root canal procedure, the extraction of the tooth followed by replacement with an implant, but this requires more treatment time, is more painful and more expensive and besides, keeping natural teeth for as long as possible is everyone’s purpose.