Root canals have had a bad reputation for a long while. Reality is, root canals can actually save your natural tooth rather than needing it extracted and replaced. Most of the time, root canals are the chosen procedure when the tooth has severely decayed, to the point where a filling or a crown will not be an option. This is why, if you’re suffering from a toothache, you should see your doctor for their professional opinion on what treatment you should undergo, before it worsens.
If your toothache is to the point where your dentist recommends doing a root canal, the tooth pulp and nerves are dying or already dead. This would usually take an extraction to rectify, but with a root canal, your doctor can clean the dead pulp and save the tooth.
Root canals are an extremely common procedure in the world of dentistry and the treatments for it continue to get better through the years. As new technology emerges, a root canal becomes easier to perform. When you go through the root canal procedure, your doctor will use a tool that goes inside the decaying tooth, and scrapes out all of the pulp inside. This ensures that every piece of dying or dead pulp is gone, and that the nerves affected are removed, too. This procedure generally can take up to a few hours, but is completely worth every minute.
The choice you need to make when a root canal is the appropriate procedure is whether you wish to save the dying tooth. Sometimes, a dentist will recommend the root canal, especially if they think it would be in your best interest to save the tooth. Other times, you will be able to make the executive decision, if a root canal is not the only procedure.
Although a root canal is a procedure that many fear, it is also a procedure that can save the life of your tooth. If you have a dying tooth, you should severely consider this procedure. Your dentist will walk you through more details of the procedure, if need be. Set up a consultation to make sure you fix your pained tooth as soon as possible.
