Does getting a root canal sound really painful to you? Do you think you really need it? Why do you need it? Let’s take a look at a few commonly asked questions on root canals. What is a root canal and do I really need one?
Each tooth contains a sensitive living center called as a nerve. When your decay has finished burrowing through the entire tooth it then reaches the sensitive central living tissue and then starts irritating it. Ultimately due to the constant irritants the nerve just dies and rots away. The dead nerve and pus accumulate inside the tooth and generally cause flare ups every month with severe swelling and pain. In a root canal procedure the dentist will excavate the entire dead nerve, pus and leaves behind a hollow sterile pipe of the tooth. He then strengthens this hollow dead structure with a central filling of a really hard material and covers it with a cap to protect it.

What are the signs of needing endodontic treatment or a root canal?
When the decay reaches the central nerve of the tooth, you will experience severe pain swellings, sensitivity to heat or cold, discoloration of the tooth, etc

Does a root canal save a tooth?
Definitely, a retained tooth is much better than losing your natural tooth. After the root canal procedure the tooth does become really brittle so you have to be slightly careful on eating hard and sticky food. Otherwise a well-done root canal lasts for a really long, long, time.

I can recall the feelings of my patients at the utterance of the root canal. They would be just horrified and I guess if they were given a choice of run or stay, they would be running away without any exception. However, if the dentists are more competent, half of the root canal treatments can be avoided and instead a pulp capping would suffice.

Whether or not tooth decay warrants a root canal is sometimes puzzling to even a competent dentist; however, if the dentist can carefully drill and see through the depth of the decay, he would find the nerve alive and in that case he opts out of RCT. If it’s dead a root canal is warranted though. A filling or pulp cap is enough to fix the problem when the nerve is intact.

Pulp cap is a dental procedure wherein the dentist drills and goes to nerve level when removing decay. The exposed nerve, which can be regarded as pulp, would then be capped or covered after the decay has been removed and cleaned from the cavity. The procedure is regarded as a conservative treatment and the cavity would be filled with bonded composite technique and there is no calcium hydroxide layer unlike in the earlier days. The success rate of this procedure is high as well as the treatment also lasts for long time period. If the patient is rightly picked for the procedure, it’s almost successful.

By pulp capping your dentist is trying to keep the decayed tooth alive besides avoiding a need for the much-painful ouchie root-canal treatment. Pulp capping has been an old procedure, however, newer techniques and materials are evolving to make a person more comfortable.

If we think about the intense pain in our teeth that drive us crazy, we would simply love to pull that one out to stop the pain it causes. But wait! Don’t do that. We have another option to extraction of teeth. All of us would prefer to keep our own teeth instead of getting a bridge or denture. Here we can be helped with root canal therapy, which is also called endodontic therapy. This procedure is helpful in restoring dead teeth, where the pulp is damaged or dead. All the teeth have enamel, dentine, and pulp. This pulp is contained in a chamber at the centre of the dentine called pulp chamber, which extends to the tip of the teeth roots via narrow tubular canals called root canal. The pulp filling the root canals is highly vascularised and also contains nerve tissues. Hence, when we have caries or deep cavities on the surface of the tooth, it gets direct connection to the sensitive pulp and we feel sudden pain or sensitivity to heat, cold, or sweets. When exposed, there is greater chance of the pulp to become infected and later causing a chronic infection or abscess. When there is an infection, we get pain and swelling around the teeth. If this condition is treated early by filling the cavity, the tooth can be saved. However, if the condition progresses untreated, a chronic infection or necrosis of the pulp ensues leading to darkening or discoloration of the teeth. Now the pulp cannot be saved and has to be removed, as it has become the seat of chronic infection and pain. For this, your dentist would advice you to undergo a root canal therapy so that the decayed part can be removed while maintaining the root structure. Generally, this type of treatment requires 1 to 2 visits to your dentist. Majority of London citizens are fearful of root canal therapy, thinking it to be very painful. Actually, the procedure itself is not painful. Before beginning the procedure, your dentist might take an x-ray to find out the extent of decay or infection. He will then cover the tooth with a rubber dam to keep the tooth dry and will make an external hole to get access to the root canal. Through this hole, the dead pulp and abscess and/bacteria would be removed and the root canal would be emptied. After emptying, the tooth will be filled with gutta percha, a putty like material and the external hole will be sealed. As an anaesthetic is used to numb your teeth, you won’t feel any pain during the procedure. But if filling is delayed, you might feel some pain and sensitivity, which can be relieved by over-the-counter medications. After filling and sealing the cavity, the tooth can be treated to regain its natural colour using suitable techniques. You might be needed to avoid chewing hard substances for sometime after treatment. After the root canal therapy, teeth look natural and with proper hygiene and dental care, root canals last lifelong.