Root canal treatment
What are the advantages of a root canal treatment?
As a result of quick development of odontology, today teeth that would have been extracted in past, can be saved with a root canal treatment.
Why is a root canal treatment needed?
The dental pulp – the blood and nerve system feeding the tooth – can be found in the centre of the tooth. In most cases a root canal treatment is needed because the decay goes too deep and reaches the pulp, which gets infected by bacteria, gets damaged or inflamed and with the time passing it dies.
When should we consult a dentist?
- If our tooth feels to be „longer” than usual, if it becomes sensitive for pressing or during chewing
- If we experience pain when having cold or hot food/drinks
- When deformation can be seen on the X-ray image
- When our tooth has discolouration, its colour becomes any shades of grey
Is it true that a root canal treatment is painful?
Pain and unpleasant symptoms are caused by the inflammation. Since root canal treatments are done under local anaesthetization, in most cases the treatments are painless.
What is the process of a root canal treatment? How long does it take?
A root canal treatment is a process of several treatments, usually it is minimum 3 sessions until it is done, but it can be even more depending on how the tooth reacts and how fast healing occurs.
As a first step the dentist drills an access hole to the dental pulp chamber, enlarges and flares the natural canals. A tooth can have one, two or three roots and each root has a canal in its center. The vascular nerve bundle feeding the tooth within itself enters the tooth at its apex. During a root canal treatment we remove this vascular nerve bundle, we enlarge the canals, cease the unevenness of the inner wall for the would-be root filling to stick better to the wall and fill the canal in without gaps. Enlarging is made manually or mechanically. During and after we irrigate the canals with a disinfectant solution and then we put medication inside the tooth and close it with a temporary filling.
Next step is that we remove the temporary filling, we clean the canals with a root canal file again, and irrigate them with a disinfectant solution. In lucky cases, now we can make a final root filling, but if there are still disturbing symptoms or if the state of the inner part of the tooth is not as it should be we can put medication again in the tooth. It is always the processes going on inside the tooth that decide when to put a final root filling. After the final root filling is placed an X-ray is made to control if everything went well. The final root filling does not mean that the root canal treatment is finished, because it closes only the root canals and we still need to make a filling to seal the tooth. This happens with the next session because the material of the root filling needs 24 hours to bond. This period of time must be waited and then we can seal the tooth.
Is there anything left to do after the root canal treatment?
Unfortunately root canal treated teeth become dry because they lose their inner nutrition and like a dry tree, they become brittle. Therefore even if not right after the root canal treatment, but 2-3 years later we suggest a covering crown for the root canal treated tooth like a helmet, to protect from breakage.
If you have a tooth-ache, do not hesitate to call our dental clinic for an appointment to get a professional help as soon as possible
If you hold over having a dental treatment because of fears for dentists – please be assured that we strive to release your fears and we put emphasis on having treatments with less pain possible as well.
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