Root Canals
No one likes the thought of having a root canal done.
But root canals allow you to keep your teeth. And rarely is the procedure painful.
In fact, they are the procedure during which patients most often fall asleep!
What causes the need for a Root Canal?
Inside a healthy tooth, there is a canal with nerves and blood vessels. When that canal space becomes infected by deep decay, deep cracks or trauma, the nerves and vessels die and bacteria can multiply rapidly. With no working blood vessels, the body cannot fight the infection. The infection often spreads into the bone at the end of the tooth, destroying bone as it progresses. At this point, the only way to get rid of the infection is by extracting the tooth or doing a root canal treatment.
What is a Root Canal?
Root canal treatment involves cutting a hole in the tooth to access the canal space, cleaning and disinfecting it, shaping it so that it is easier to fill, and filling it with a rubbery material called gutta percha. Once this is done successfully, the body can then fight the infection in the surrounding bone, since there is a good blood supply there. And the bacteria cannot go back into the root canal space to hide.
