San Jose Dentist ROOT CANAL THERAPY

There are a wide variety of dental procedures which dentists offer to patients. One of the most common of these procedures is the root canal. Root canal therapy is the treatment used to repair and save a tooth that is badly decayed or has become becomes infected. Needless to say, this procedure elicits a wide range of apprehensive reactions among patients since it is notorious for being very painful. However, the reality is that instead of causing pain, root canal therapy relieves the pain of having exposed nerves in the teeth.

The natural cavity within the centre of the tooth is what is referred to as a root canal. The pulp or pulp chamber is the soft area within the root canal. Within the root canal, lies the tooth’s nerves. If, therefore, the root canal gets infected, then decay will begin attacking the whole tooth. This is due to the fact that bacteria multiply in the pulp chamber whenever the tooth’s nerve tissue or pulp is damaged.If this goes untreated then it is very likely to result in the infection of tissue and the formation of abscesses.

An abscess is a pus-filled pocket that forms at the end of the roots of the tooth. An abscess occurs when the infection spreads all the way past the ends of the roots of the tooth. In addition to an abscess, an infection in the root canal of a tooth can cause swelling and bone loss. Drainage problems extending outside from the root may also result from an infection of the root canal. This is when a hole develops on the side of the tooth and allows drainage to occur through the cheek or skin.

The signals that a person is due for a root canal include severe toothaches, pain upon chewing or application of pressure, prolonged sensitivity and pain to heat or cold temperatures (after the hot or cold has been removed) and discoloration of the tooth. Other symptoms include swelling and tenderness in the adjacent gums as well as a persistent pimple on the gums.

To cure the infection and save the tooth, the dentist drills into the pulp chamber and removes the infected pulp and then drills the nerve out of the root canal with long needle-shaped drills. After this is done, the dentist fills each of the root canals and the chamber with an inert material and seals up the opening. It is often considered best that the tooth be fitted with a crown so as to increase the prognosis of the tooth by up to six times.

Otherwise, over the years the tooth will almost certainly fracture, since root canals remove tooth structure from the tooth and undermine the tooth's structural integrity. Also, root canal teeth tend to be more brittle than teeth not treated with a root canal.