ROOT CANAL TREATMENT
Treatment
Does it hurt?
Afterwards:
Pain/Free form Pain
There may be several reasons why we would recommend a root canal to you.
Most often, we recommend root canal treatment if you have or have had a large cavity that has caused an infection in the nerve of the tooth.
The nerves in your teeth are normally supplied with nutrients from blood vessels, but if you have a bad infection that has penetrated the nerve, this can result in the blood supply being cut off. In other words, the nerve can no longer be supplied with nutrients and it perishes. This also closes the door so that the immune substances can't penetrate and do their work. Thus the nerve dies and shrinks. A lumen appears in the root canal, which becomes a bacterial focus so the infection is continually renewed.
The same can happen if a filling or a crown is too close to the nerve.
If this is the case, the nerve can over time become sick and die, after which bacteria will enter the dead nerve tissue and thus cause a root infection.
If we leave the inflammation alone, the body's reaction will be to expel the tooth over time.
However, there is an 85% chance that if we treat the infection and thus make the canals bacteria-free and fill up the lumen, the bone will no longer try to expel the tooth.
Free from bacteria
The treatment is done in such a way that the dentist opens up to the root system and cleans it. To prevent new bacteria from entering the root system, the tooth is protected with a small rubber sheet.
The length of the root canals is then determined using an X-ray.
The diseased/dead nerve tissue and the bacteria are removed, and the root canals are cleaned out with small root files.
If the inflammation is extensive, the session sometimes requires more than one visit to the clinic.
In the period between sessions, a disinfecting paste is placed in the root canals and closed with a temporary filling material.
When the tooth is symptom-free, the canal system is filled
The filling of the root canal must ensure that new bacteria do not enter the root canal.
On a final X-ray, the dentist can check whether the filling material fills the lumen as it should.
A filling is then made and after about 3 months we can check on an X-ray whether the result is as we expected. See x-rays at top.
With all treatments, we are 100% focused on making it a good experience for you as a patient, and root canal treatments can therefore also be carried out completely painlessly.
After the treatment, i.e. at home, you can sometimes experience light, temporary pain up to a few days after the root canal treatment. However, these are mild and can be remedied with paracetamol.
A root canal is a complicated treatment, which particularly depends on the extent to which control of the bacteria has been achieved.
If it turns out that the treatment has not achieved the expected result, do not despair, we have other options.
You are usually informed about how we think the root canal treatment itself went, were the canals very curved, were they severely obliterated or were there other conditions that caused us to have doubts about the outcome.
In some cases, a revision of the root treatment is necessary, i.e. a reshaping or a root tip operation is necessary. The success rate of these treatments drops to around 60%.
In the worst case, we have to extract the tooth and instead we can help you with an implant or a bridge solution.
After an observation period, an X-ray is taken that shows whether the root canal appears to have had an effect. This means that the area around the root has healed satisfactorily.
A root-treated tooth does not react in the same way to pressure as a tooth that has not been root-treated. The root-treated tooth no longer has a blood supply like the other teeth and therefore it becomes more porcelain-like.
This means that the tooth can be overloaded more easily and can break or split.
If the tooth splits lengthwise, it can no longer be saved and must be extracted.
Therefore, we often recommend that the root-treated tooth be fitted with a crown.
Some root-treated teeth will change color over time. The color change can become so great that a corrective treatment may be necessary for cosmetic reasons.
The assessment of whether the tooth should have a crown is based on how much tooth substance is left. Often, the teeth have already been treated a lot when they end up in root canal treatment, and therefore it is probably a good idea to expect that the tooth should subsequently be supported by a metal-ceramic crown.
