What is a Root Canal?

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What step to follow so that you never find out what is a root canal?

The term root canal describes the process of cleaning the canals that comprise the tooth’s root.

A root canal treatment is a procedure that enables the patient to keep a tooth that otherwise would have to be taken out. This kind of treatment is necessary when the pulp tissue (nerve) inside the tooth has become diseased and irreversibly damaged. During a root canal the dentist makes an opening in the top and cleans the necrotic (dead) or diseased tissue and bacteria inside the root of the tooth. The space left after cleaning is filled with an inert filling material in order to prevent future leakage of bacteria into the void from saliva. After the cleaning and filling of the tooth has been finished, the dentist will put in a new filling or crown the tooth.

The need for a root canal is caused by trauma to the tooth, dental caries (tooth decay) and coronal cracks.

A root canal will take a couple of visits to the dentist to complete. First of all you need an x-ray to locate the source of the problem. A local anaesthesia is given to the tooth undergoing the root canal procedure, an opening is made and the pulp of the tooth is removed. This part is called a pulpectomy. Finally the filling is applied to the tooth and sealed.

Although famously believed to be a very painful procedure, a root canal is not any more painful than getting a filling in your tooth. With modern tools and approaches to dentistry, this procedure need not be the nightmare you imagine it to be and keeping a tooth is infinitely preferable to loosing a tooth.

Dr Alan

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