Root canals have gotten, to put it mildly, a very bad reputation over the years as a procedure dentists only use to torture their patients. Fortunately for you, that couldn’t be further from the truth! Root canals are actually one of the best tools Dr. John Krell has to relieve severe dental pain and save teeth that would otherwise need to be extracted. We typically used them to treat teeth that have suffered damage to their inner nerve, and thanks to modern dentistry and sedation techniques, it’s now a painless procedure.
Why Would I Need a Root Canal?
Most of the time, a cavity is limited to just your outer enamel, and we can typically fix that with just a filling. However, if it is left alone for a long time, it can easily reach the innermost chamber of your tooth where the sensitive nerve resides. This part of the tooth can also become damaged due to a traumatic injury. In either case, at this point, a patient will often be in severe pain.
Here are some signs that you might need a root canal:
- Severe dental pain in one tooth
- Swelling or redness in the gums near a tooth
- A bump on the gums near a tooth
- Pain when biting down on a tooth
How a Root Canal Works
If we decide that a root canal is the best treatment for you, it will involve 4 basic steps:
- Your doctor will create a small hole in your tooth to reach the inner chamber.
- They will remove any damaged/infected tissue.
- They will fill the area with a sanitizing material called gutta percha.
- At a follow-up visit, they will repair the tooth using a dental crown.
