Root Canal Treatment: A solution to save your damaged tooth and your natural smile!
This procedure saves the tooth with an infection or dead pulp to stop increasing the disease. You will need a root canal if the infection has spread from an existing untreated cavity or/and gum to the tooth's pulp. The tooth's pulp is basically the heart of the tooth where the blood vessels and nerves are. If the tooth's pulp is infected, there is no way of saving the tooth unless you undergo root canal treatment.
All teeth have a pulp chamber that protects nerves, blood vessels and nutrients. If the tooth's pulp is infected, only Root Canal treatment is a solution.
When the tooth's nerves are infected, your dentist will clean the infected area under local anaesthesia and fill the roots. After root canal treatment, a dental crown is always suggested to replace the lost tooth structure for more support and strength.
The symptoms of the infected root are different from person to person, but these are the most common signs:
These symptoms are not always related to infected roots. Still, they will be confirmed at your examination with one of the highly qualified dentists at Gorgeous Smiles. After an x-ray and inspection, your dentist will advise you of the needed treatment.
The infected tooth cannot be repaired by itself, and if you leave it like that, you may experience:
It is better to do the treatment as soon as possible before it is too late for the tooth to be saved.
Another reason which makes it essential to have the treatment soon is to prevent the infection from spreading to the neighbouring teeth, which may cause:
There are many stories behind root canal treatment that are exaggerated a lot, so do not fear the therapy because it does not cause pain. It gets rid of it. It may take one to three sessions for the dentist to finish the treatment.
The dentist opens the top of the tooth through to the pulp chambers. The damaged pulp tissue is removed, and the root canals are cleaned and rinsed.
Then an antibiotic paste is placed in the roots to prevent further infection. Finally, the tooth is filled with temporary filling material until the next session. The canals are filled on your last appointment and the tooth itself too.
For better strength, a Porcelain Crown is placed on the tooth. At Gorgeous Smiles, our Porcelain Crowns are made within one appointment, thanks to our in-house lab. Read more about our Same day Porcelain Crowns and Veneers.
The treatment depends on each case complexity and varies from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Not at all, Root canal Treatments are designed to relieve the pain and clean the infection. Therefore, after your tooth is numb by our dentist, you will not feel pain. There is, of course, discomfort if the condition does not allow your tooth to get numb. In these cases, your dentist might prescribe some antibiotics for you and delay the appointment until the infection subsides.
There are many advantages that you can get from the treatment, such as:
The infection may come back in 30% of the cases, although all the excellent care your dentist can give the tooth. We recommend keeping your natural tooth rather than extracting it, considering the failure rate.
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For more information feel free to call us on 03 9042 0483
Author: Dr Minoo Ghamari
Gorgeous Smiles Dental Principal Dentist
**The content on this blog is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified dentist in Melbourne with questions you may have regarding medical conditions. For News and update, please follow us on FaceBook.
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