Signs Indicating the Need for Root Canal Treatment

If you suffer from an excruciating toothache resulting from severe tooth decay or infection, it indicates you may need a root canal. Root canals are a dental procedure that helps fix your damaged tooth, preserving it from removal.

Root canals receive a particular name because the procedure involves cleaning the tooth’s internal canals extending to the root. Root canals have a painful reputation, but the reality is entirely different. Significantly advanced modern anesthetics and dental instruments make root canal treatment completely pain-free, providing freedom from an infected or decaying tooth that causes more pain than undergoing a simple and quick root canal treatment near you.

Signs Indicating the Need for a Root Canal

At the center of your tooth is its dental pulp sitting deep inside the crown and extending to the tooth roots. The dental pulp contains the blood vessels, connective tissue, and nerves vulnerable to infections. When your tooth sustains damage, bacteria penetrate the openings to enter and infect the dental pulp.

If you don’t repair the damaged tooth promptly, the bacteria infecting the dental pulp cause infections and inflammation to kill the dental pulp, result in bone loss, and potentially cause you to lose the entire tooth.

Excruciating pain alone doesn’t indicate you may need a root canal. However, several signs indicate you may have a severe infection inside that requires prompt treatment.

Root Canal Indicators

The following indicators suggest your tooth is in trouble and needs root canal treatment in Tarzana without further delay unless you are willing to endure the ignominy of replacing an extracted tooth. The indicators are:

• A cavity, chip, or crack in the tooth.
• Excruciating pain when chewing by pressurizing the tooth.
• Swelling and tenderness in the gums surrounding the tooth.
• Swelling spreads around your face or neck.
• Lesions forming around the gum area surrounding the tooth appear like blisters.
• Lingering sensitivity or pain when the tooth is exposed to temperatures remains even after removing the sensation.
• Tooth darkening.

What Exactly Is the Root Canal Procedure?

A root canal procedure, alternatively called root canal therapy, cleans the infected or inflamed dental pulp and removes the damaged nerves. While the process may sound intimidating, the nerves of your tooth don’t serve any purpose besides detecting temperatures. Root canals are performed by dentists or specialists like the endodontist in Tarzana. Endodontists receive additional training to diagnose tooth pain and to accomplish this specialized procedure by working inside the tooth.

Root canals require one or two visits to the dentist for the removal of the infection. Complicated cases may require more visits.

Root Canal Steps

• If receiving root canal therapy in Tarzana, expect the specialist to take x-rays to determine the severity of the damage to the dental pulp. The images also enable the specialist to view the precise shape of your root canals and the location of the infection.
• The second step involves administering anesthesia in your mouth to ensure the area surrounding the tooth is entirely numb to prevent you from feeling any pain during the treatment. Occasionally you may have dead nerves making anesthesia unnecessary. However, the specialists provide the medications to make you more relaxed and avoid the chances of experiencing pain.
• The endodontist protects the affected tooth with rubber dams to keep it isolated from saliva.
• The specialist creates an access hole in the tooth crown to expose the dental pulp. You will not experience any pain because of the numbing medications. After making the opening, the specialist removes the decayed dental pulp from the tooth’s group using flexible instruments and scrubs the sides of the canal. Debris and bacteria are also removed from within the tooth.
• If you have an infection, the tooth specialist will medicate the access hole with antibiotics depending on the infection’s severity. The tooth is sealed off using a biocompatible rubber-like material, gutta-percha. You also receive a temporary filling to protect your tooth’s insides from saliva.

After the specialist completes this specialized treatment, they suggest you fix the tooth by getting a dental crown after you recover to restore its strength, appearance, and functionality.

Although root canals have a fearsome reputation, specialists like Endodontists ensure you don’t feel any pain but find relief from the discomfort, you experience from the infection to help preserve your natural tooth from extraction, which remains the sole alternative to avoiding a root canal.

LA Endodontics receives many patients with complaints of severe tooth and temperature sensitivity in a specific tooth and performs comprehensive exams to evaluate whether they need a root canal. The specialists suggest this tooth-preserving treatment if patients have particular indicators that endodontics therapy is best to relieve them of toothache and other complications.