Repair, Restore, and Retain Natural Teeth with Root Canal Treatment (RCT)
Each tooth has a bundle of nerves inside at the centermost part (pulp). If your tooth is infected, the pulp becomes inflamed, resulting in severe pain. Unfortunately, an infected tooth can’t be cured with antibiotics or the body’s immune system — only a root canal can save an infected tooth from extraction.
Root canal therapy (endodontic therapy) from Brentwood Dental Care in Brentwood, California, carefully removes the infected pulp tissue before restoring the tooth with a filling or crown for lifetime function. Although root canals have a bad reputation, don’t fall for the misconceptions. Thanks to modern anesthetics, root canals save badly damaged teeth and are virtually painless.
Signs you need a root canal
Cavities, faulty dental work, and tooth damage can cause harmful bacteria to infiltrate your tooth’s chamber. Dental infection causes an increase in pressure within the tooth, hence the reason your tooth pains when pressure is applied when chewing or brushing teeth.
Besides pain, the other signs you need to see a root canal dentist include:
- Tooth sensitivity, especially when consuming hot and cold drinks
- A recurrent gum-like pimple on the gums
- Tooth discoloration (an infected tooth tends to darken as the pulp dies)
- Pus drainage from the tooth
Recognizing an infected tooth isn’t always easy. Harmful bacteria can kill the nerves, causing pain and sensitivity to go unnoticed. Regular check-ups at our office can help diagnose tooth infections and other problems for prompt treatment.
The root canal procedure
Despite the bad rap, root canals are generally painless procedures. The pain associated with root canals stems from the tooth infection, which dissipates once we remove the diseased tissues.
While all root canal treatments are patient-based, these treatments generally follow the steps below.
- Prioritizing your comfort: Since a root canal is more extensive than a cavity treatment, we always want to ensure maximum comfort. Before treatment, we administer local anesthesia to minimize pain, although patients with dental fear or a low tolerance to pain can benefit from sedation dentistry.
- Tooth preparation: We’ll use a dental dam to isolate your tooth to avoid contamination from saliva. Then, we’ll drill a small hole at the top of the crown to access the pulp chamber.
- Pulpectomy: We’ll remove the diseased pulp chamber and all its contents using the access hole created. Next, we thoroughly clean and sanitize the pulp chamber and root canals to eliminate all traces of bacteria.
- Tooth restoration: After cleaning, we’ll fill the pulp chamber and canals with a rubber-like material (gutta-percha) to prevent future bacterial infections. The final step is to restore your tooth with a composite filling or dental crown.
Painless root canals in Brentwood, California
We want to change what you have read or heard about root canals. Dr. Don Mungcal and the team offer safe and gentle root canals in a relaxing environment. Find out more by calling (310) 444-9900 or request an online appointment today.
Root canal therapy is a very common procedure. It has a reputation of being undesirable and painful. But when done properly it is actually painless. Every tooth in your mouth is composed of a crown and a root. When a cavity or bacteria penetrates the tooth, the root and its nerves become irritated. As a result, the bacteria within the pulp cavity needs to be removed and cleaned in order to restore the tooth to its healthy state. Following the procedure, the tooth is fragile and consequently is restored with the natural crown for a lifetime of durability. Root canals have a success rate of 95% or greater. Most root canal are diagnosed by patients’ sensitivities to a specific tooth. Be sure to consult your dentist any symptoms or discomfort occur.
