General Dentistry
Root Canal
What is Root Canal treatment?
If tooth decay is left untreated it could lead to bacteria affecting the nerve of the tooth. This can be painful but is treatable with root canal treatment.
Sometimes a trauma to the tooth can affect the nerve. If this happens we need to remove the nerve and replace it with a filling material. Decay can have the same affect and a simple filling wont solve the problem. The tooth will be required to have the nerve taken out of it and reinforced with a filling and a crown.
Duration
1.5 hours
Appointments
2
Anaesthetic
Yes
+ What are the Benefits?
- Prolongs life of tooth providing function for eating
- Aesthetically pleasing rather than having your tooth extracted
- More cost effective than tooth replacement
+ What are the disadvantages?
- Makes the tooth structure more brittle proning the tooth to fracture which is why we reinforce with a crown
- Doesnt come with 100% success rate
+ What is the Process?
Before having root canal treatment, your dentist may take a series of X-rays of the affected tooth. This allows them to build up a clear picture of the root canal and assess the extent of any damage.
The dentist will place a rubber sheet (dam) around the tooth to ensure it's dry during treatment which improves the quality of the treatment and provides a higher success rate. We will open your tooth through the crown, the flat part at the top, to access the soft tissue at the centre of the tooth (pulp). The dentist will then remove any infected pulp that remains. The canal of the tooth is thoroughly cleaned and irrigated using specialist solutions. The canal of the tooth is then filled with a filling material and the crown of the tooth is filled with a strong filling material.
We always reccommend that a root canal treated tooth is completed with a crown for strong reinforcement.
