What Is a Root Canal?
Has your dentist told you a root canal is in your near future? Moreover, do you feel tooth pain and wonder if you need this type of treatment? What is a root canal and how does it help you maintain good oral health?
Exactly What is a Root Canal?
A root canal is a dental procedure that cleans, treats, and repairs badly damaged teeth or infection. The common dental therapy removes damaged parts of your tooth; its inner pulp. Furthermore, the dentist cleans and disinfects the inside of your tooth before filling and sealing it. The therapy helps you when you suffer a cracked tooth, trauma, deep cavity or repeated treatment on the same tooth.
The root canal therapy process involves first seeing your dentist for a checkup. However, if your dentist finds problems, or if you suffer a painful cavity, he examines your teeth to determine the best method of treatment.
When you need a root canal, you must visit the dentist a few times for this therapy. During these appointments, you go through several steps for repair. In fact, the first step usually includes digital X-rays or other dental imaging studies. Your dentist looks for signs of decay in your teeth and confirms whether your tooth needs a root canal.
In your next appointment, or when the dentist is ready to perform the procedure, you first receive local anesthesia. Furthermore, a root canal only causes brief discomfort, much like getting a filling. Therefore, local anesthesia keeps you comfortable during the procedure.
The next step for your dentist is making an opening in your tooth. Through this opening, he removes the damaged tooth pulp. Many people know this part of the procedure as a pulpectomy; a process of opening roots for the pulp removal. In addition, your dentist fills the openings with tooth filling material and uses a special dental cement to close and seal the opening.
Do I Need a Root Canal?
Root canals usually treat deep infection in your teeth. However, this infection starts when bacteria invade a severe cavity or tooth injury.
Undergoing a root canal prevents you from needing a tooth extraction. Keeping natural teeth in place after decay treatment serves you better throughout your lifetime. Additionally, you don’t need dentures, implants, or other tooth replacement if you take good care of your teeth after a root canal.