What Is a Root Canal?
Beneath your tooth enamel is dental pulp consisting of blood vessels and nerves. When a cavity is left untreated and the bacteria have penetrated the tooth enamel, it will affect this area and can be extremely painful, due to the presence of the nerves. Once the cavity has penetrated the tooth enamel, special treatment is required to cleanse the tooth. The procedure to repair the area and relieve your pain and sensitivity by removing the infected pulp is called a root canal. While more involved than filling a simple cavity, root canals provide us with a reliable way to save your teeth and avoid tooth extractions. They also protect you by preventing the underlying infection from spreading and causing more issues for your dental health and even overall health. At Coastal Connecticut Dentistry, we have extensive experience in helping patients just like you regain normal, comfortable lives without pain through root canal procedures!
How We Do Root Canals
Once we determine that a root canal is the right course of treatment for you, we’ll schedule an appointment for the actual procedure. After making you comfortable with oral anesthetic, we access the affected tooth’s pulp chamber by making an opening in the crown. Inside, we remove the infected pulp and all living tissue, then sanitize, widen, and reshape the root canals. We then medicate the infected area before filling the empty root canals with gutta percha, a specially made dental material. This fortifies the tooth, enabling it to perform reliably again once the site has healed. We may also insert a post to help stabilize the tooth. Finally, we top it off with a crown. Depending upon the extent of decay, we may be able to provide your final crown the very same day through CEREC technology! That means fewer visits, and you’ll leave our Waterford, CT office with a durable, fully functional, and attractive permanent crown.
Root Canal Warning Signs
- Severe tooth pain
- Redness or swelling of the gums
- Temperature sensitivity in your teeth
- Abscesses or pimples on your gum tissue
