Root Canal Treatment

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Root Canal Treatment

When a nerve of a tooth gets infected root canal treatment can save the tooth, you may realize you have an infected tooth because it’s sensitive to hot or cold, it causes swelling and pain or gives you a bad taste in your mouth you may also be completely unaware that you have an infected tooth because you experience none of the symptoms at all. The white outside of the tooth that you use to see is the Enamel inside the enamel is another hard layer the Dentin, there is a small chamber in the center of the dentin called the Pulp Chamber, the tooth pulp is at soft tissue made up of nerves, arteries and veins, the pulp extends from the pulp chamber down to a narrow channel which is the root canal all the way to the tip of the root, in general teeth in the front of the mouth have one or two root canals, while teeth on the back of the mouth have two, three or four root canals.

How does teeth get infected?

Though are some teeth without cavities can get infected, deep cavities can allow germs to get into the pulp chamber, this germs cause infections and the pulp dies the pus of the infection eventually builds up to the root tip and makes a hole in the bone, this is called an abscess.

A blow to a tooth can also cause the pulp to die and then become infected, an infected tooth will never heal on its own and as it gets worse it will continue to be a source of infection that drags down your immune system and that can affect your complete body. This damage to the bone and the swelling inside the bone can be excruciatingly painful and even life threatening. Years ago an infected tooth would just had to be extracted, but today we can save your tooth with root canal treatment.

Root canal procedure:

Root Canal treatment and restoring the tooth usually involves 3 steps first:

  • We remove the infection to promote healing
  • Next we place filling material in the root canal
  • And then we crown the tooth to protect it

We want the entire procedure to be comfortable for you, so the first thing we do is make sure you are truly numb, we place a rubber damp around your tooth to isolate from the rest of the mouth, it protects you like a safety net, nothing can fall to the back of your throat it also keeps the tooth dry and accessible so we can do a better job.

To get to the infection we make an opening to the top of the tooth down into the pulp chamber, we use a dental file to carefully clean out the infected tooth tissue and shape the canals to receive the filling material, we take x rays to be sure that all the infected pulp is removed, then we place filling material to fill the root canals, sometimes is necessary to then buildup the tooth with a post and a core, the post ads much needed retention for the core material, is cemented down inside one of the root canals. Making a crown is the last step in restoring your tooth, it protects your tooth and gives you back your smile.