Root Canal Therapy – Friend or Foe?

Root Canal Therapy – Friend or Foe?

So you have been to your dentist and been told that your tooth needs root canal therapy. Most people have the instant reaction of fear. They hear that root canal treatment is torturous, doesn’t really work and is the stuff of horror movies. All of this is not true but I’ll come back to that.

First, lets discuss why root canal therapy is needed. Inside each tooth lives a little nerve chamber, called the “pulp”. This contains all the nerves and blood vessels that keep your tooth alive. If this becomes irritated because it has a large filling sitting very close to it, a big decayed cavity near it or if its been exposed by a fracture or break then you experience pain. This pain usually is pretty severe and throbbing in nature. It is often made much worse by temperature changes of hot and cold food and drink and this pain can linger for some time.

What may happen next is that the pain may disappear like a miracle! Unfortunately this is not good news. This probably means that the pulp has given up and died. The nerve chamber then gets over run by bacteria and becomes slowly infected. This causes the areas around the roots of the tooth to become inflamed. This can develop further into a dental abscess causing extreme pain and swelling with you often not even able to touch the tooth without severe pain.

This is all pretty grim reading, but there is a way to help. This is where root canal therapy comes in. An x-ray is taken of the tooth before treatment, the tooth is anesthetized so that no pain or discomfort is felt during treatment and a rubber sheet, known as a dental dam, is placed over the tooth to isolate and protect the tooth and the rest of your mouth during treatment. Next, a small access cavity is made into the tooth so that the dead or dying nerve can be accessed. Now remember, this wont be felt because you have had sufficient anesthesia. The dentist will then remove the nerve tissue from inside the tooth and from inside the roots so that no further pain is felt. A further series of X-rays may be taken to help the dentist determine all the nerve has been cleaned out. A therapeutic dressing/ointment is placed into the tooth and a temporary filling is then placed into the access cavity to protect the inside of the tooth. This is left in place giving ample time for the tooth to settle down and for the dressing to work.

You should leave that appointment realising that is was not bad at all. In fact, I have had a great number of people fall asleep in the chair whilst having this procedure. You will then return next week for more of the same but this time the root canals and pulp chamber fully cleaned, disinfection and will be sealed and filled up to prevent any reinfection of the tooth.

You may have a mild discomfort following root canal treatment but this is normally completely managed with over the counter pain killers. Overall, this treatment has a very high success rate as long as all the correct steps and precautions are taken by your dentist. Long term it will most probably be recommended that your tooth will require a crown to restore it. This is something I will cover in a future blog.

David Hurst BDS (Lon)