Root canal therapy can help relieve tooth pain and preserve your natural teeth.

If you have infected or damaged teeth that are causing you pain, you may have spoken to your dentist about ways to relieve the pain. At Sheppard Family Dental Care, we offer root canal therapy as one option to help give you some relief from your pain.

What is root canal therapy?

While many people call the procedure a root canal, that is incorrect. A root canal is the actual part of the tooth below the gumline that holds all of the nerve endings, blood vessels, and the other cells of the tooth. All of that is collectively called the pulp of the tooth. The pulp is what transmits sensations, the hot and cold of what we eat and drink.

Also known as endodontic therapy, root canal therapy is a treatment that your dentist can do to remove an infection from inside of the tooth, which is the tooth’s pulp. Root canal therapy involves the dentist removing the nerves from the pulp of the tooth. Root canal therapy will keep the tooth intact and can also help to prevent further infections of that tooth’s pulp.

What is the process of root canal therapy?

So what is root canal therapy? It is the process of having the damaged or infected pulp of the tooth removed from the root canal of the tooth.

The first thing a dentist will do during root canal therapy is numb the area around the tooth so the patient won’t feel anything. The dentist will then drill a small hole in the top surface of the tooth to gain access to the pulp, where the dentist will then use small instruments to remove the damaged or dead pulp from inside of the tooth. Once all of the damaged or dead matter is removed from the pulp chamber, the dentist will fill in the hole with a cement-type material that will seal off all of the nerve canals inside of the tooth. 

On completion, of  the root canal therapy the tooth is essentially dead, since it has no remaining live nerve endings. This means that the tooth becomes more brittle since it does not receive nourishment from the nerves the way it once did. To help protect the tooth, your dentist will use either a filling or a crown to help strengthen the tooth. The filling or crown will serve as the structure your tooth needs so you can go about eating as you once did.

What are the benefits of root canal therapy?

If you have a tooth with damaged pulp and nerves, root canal therapy is a great option for treatment for many reasons.

Restore our Tooth Health

First, root canal therapy allows the dentist to remove the infection from the tooth, leaving you pain-free. Root canal therapy also helps to relieve any sensitivity you may have had with that tooth before root canal therapy was performed.

Maintain your jaw shape. 

Since the tooth doesn’t need to be removed during root canal therapy, patients don’t have to worry about other teeth changing their alignment in the jaw, which can lead to other dental problems down the road.

Enjoy all the foods you love. 

Root canal therapy can also restore your biting and chewing function back to before you had toothache pain because the tooth is still there. With a crown or filling helping to reestablish the integrity of the tooth, your mouth will feel like new again.

Root canal therapy is a painless procedure. 

Many patients are concerned with the pain of root canal therapy, but the opposite is true. Root canal therapy is meant to be a solution to toothache pain and not a cause of pain. Your dentist will use a numbing agent to make sure you don’t feel anything during the root canal therapy procedure, and after the procedure is over, you won’t feel any pain after your tooth has healed.

As always, if you are in pain, you should consult with your dentist to find out the cause of your pain and what your options for relief are.

Visit Sheppard Family Dental Care if you experience tooth pain.

If you are experiencing tooth pain, make sure you contact the team at Sheppard Family Dental Care. We can perform a complete dental evaluation and then discuss with you what your options are. Our team is here to help cure your pain and help you maintain a healthy smile for years to come!