Root Canal Treatment: When a tooth is infected with bacteria and has reached the nerve tissue inside the tooth, intense pain often develops. Less frequently an infected tooth may not cause any pain at all until an abscess forms.
The following are common symptoms that you may experience from infected an infected tooth:
Sensitivity to hot and cold liquids, sensitivity to sweets, pressure when biting (this tends to linger on for some time), severe toothache, throbbing, aching that wakes you up at night and swelling around the infected area.
It is advisable that if any or all of the above symptoms occur, that you visit your dentist as soon as possible. These are the obvious signs that the nerve inside your tooth is infected or damaged.
Your dentist will make a diagnosis by checking and examining the tooth and taking x-rays to determine if the tooth can be saved. There are some cases when a tooth cannot be root canal treated and has to be extracted. In this scenario, our general dentist will then explain to you the options that are available at Dental Essence and may give you a referral to a specialist if required.
To alleviate the pain during infection phase, tooth extraction or Root Canal Treatment is done to save the tooth. The dentist will remove the damaged and infected pulp, clean out the canal, enlarge then shape them. Anti-bacterial are placed inside the root canals to help stop the infection and inflammation. Once the bacterial infections are gone, the root canals are filled with clean material and are restored. Several visits are needed to complete this treatment.
Root Canal Treatment is not always 100 % successful as most dental practitioners are aware, complications may arise. The treated tooth can fracture before the completion of the RCT. The files used to clean the canals can break inside the canals. Success rates of molar canals are typically 90% whereas retreatment of RCT can be as low as 70%. Once completed it is recommended that the molar teeth are crowned to protect them from breaking or fracturing. A crown increases the longevity of the tooth.
Before any procedure, we will inform you of the risks by way of written informed consent documentation. Individual results may vary.