Root Canal Treatment: End the Pain and Save Your Natural Tooth from Extraction
Living with a painful tooth can disrupt your everyday life and make eating and speaking uncomfortable. Flinders Dental Practice offers root canal services to patients in and near Flinders, Victoria, to relieve pain and save natural teeth.
Don’t let tooth pain control your life. Schedule an appointment with Dr. Chris Wooldridge and the team for safe and painless root canal services.
Do I need a root canal?
A root canal is a restorative procedure many patients need if they have an infected or damaged tooth. Your tooth isn’t just the outer white layer (enamel). Every tooth has a pulp chamber containing blood vessels, nerves, and other living tissues. While the enamel acts as a protective shield, deep cavities, fractures, or repeated dental procedures can allow harmful bacteria to reach the delicate pulp, leading to inflammation.
An infected tooth causes several unpleasant symptoms, including:
- A persistent toothache exacerbated when chewing or biting
- Tooth sensitivity to hot and cold drinks or foods
- Swollen gums or face
- Tooth discoloration (the tooth darkens)
- A pimple-like swelling on your gums
A root canal does not remove the roots of your tooth—those stay in place to maintain the tooth’s stability in your jaw. Instead, the procedure removes the infected or inflamed pulp tissue inside the tooth’s root canals.
What can I expect from the procedure?
The dentist will use dental X-rays to inspect your tooth’s damage. If it’s salvageable with a root canal, we’ll anesthetize your gums for a comfortable dental experience. Then, the dentist will make an access hole in your tooth and use it to remove the infected tissues.
Next, the empty canals are thoroughly cleaned, disinfected, and shaped to prepare for sealing. The dentist places a biocompatible material (gutta-percha) inside the canals to prevent reinfection. Lastly, your tooth will be restored with a filling or crown to maintain its appearance and structural integrity. The treated tooth looks and functions like other teeth!
What happens after a root canal?
Post-op instructions minimize pain and promote faster recovery. Pain medications and ice application will help manage pain, especially once the anesthesia wears off. Maintain good oral hygiene to protect the treated tooth from infections, and stick to soft foods until healing is complete. Attend follow-up visits so your dentist can monitor your progress and ensure proper healing.
What are the benefits of a root canal?
Do you have an infected or damaged tooth? You may think extraction is the easiest remedy but think again. A root canal saves your tooth and offers numerous oral health benefits.
- Pain relief: An infected tooth can be extremely painful. Experience immediate toothache relief with root canal services.
- Preserve your tooth: Root canal treatment saves your tooth from extraction. This saves you from the consequences of tooth loss and costly teeth replacements.
- Eat comfortably: Return to enjoying hot coffee and cold drinks without sharp pains.
- Manage infections: Treating the infected tooth prevents the infection from spreading to nearby tissues.
- Long-lasting results: The treated tooth can last for life with good maintenance.
Ready for a root canal?
Many patients dread root canals until they experience the relief it brings. The team at Flinders Dental Practice provides safe and painless root canals to patients in and around Flinders, VIC. Call (03) 5989-1129 and schedule your visit!
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.
