According to the Australian Dental Association (ADA), root canal treatment is a tooth-saving procedure that repairs and preserves badly damaged or infected teeth by removing the infected dental pulp and filling the space. With a success rate of approximately 90-95%, patients who have root canal treatment can expect a functional tooth after this endodontic treatment.
Each tooth consists of the crown, the part visible above the gum line, the root below the gum line that anchors your tooth to your jaw, and the root canal that sits in the centre of each tooth. The root canal is filled with a pulp chamber that contains blood vessels, nerves and pulp. The pulp provides nutrients, oxygen and feeling to each tooth. When it becomes infected, the entire tooth could die. Root canal therapy or root canal treatment is a dental procedure that replaces a tooth’s damaged or infected pulp with a root filling.
There are a few signs that could indicate a tooth canal infection. These symptoms include:
Tooth canal infections can arise from many differentsituations. Such events that can lead to diseaseor damage of the dental pulp include:
When left alone, a root canal infection can lead to manycomplications. Some problems include spreading theinfection to the surrounding bone, erosion of thesurrounding jaw bone and tooth loss.
Many factors affect the success rate of root canaltherapy. The situation’s complexity depends onthe number, size, shape, and depth of the rooton the affected tooth. In general, a thoroughexamination, including X-rays, determines howcomplicated the procedure will be and willdictate whether you are eligible.
During this step, any old fillings, tooth decay, infected tissue, pus and debris are removed.
The canals within the tooth need to be shaped and smoothed to ensure that bacteria cannot be trapped in any grooves when they’re filled. This step can take a few weeks or months to ensure that all the tooth is thoroughly disinfected and may be repeated several times.
Once disinfected, the empty canal is permanently sealed with a long-lasting barrier material.
Restoring the tooth may involve posts, crowns or other materials to repair functionality. The procedure may be broken up over multiple appointments, depending on the severity and difficulty of the infection.
Find out what you should eat after surgery to make healing as painless as possible.
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