Root Canals involve extracting infected pulp from within a tooth, and this prevents furthermore harmful and painful infections from occurring. The infected pulp, if left unchecked, can start to result in severe pain, and deteriorate the health of the overall tooth. Root canal treatments ensure that the pulp is removed and is a relatively pain-free procedure involving anesthesia.
Here are six facts worth knowing about root canals if you’re thinking of having one:
- The pulp is your tooth’s alarm system. It’s what alerts the body when the health of the tooth starts to decay, and also provides some of the sensations you experience on your teeth when eating various foods. Sensitivity to the pulp is what you experience as pain.
- The pulp is also responsible for more than just providing sensation. It’s also critical to formulating dentin, which is the layer that sits underneath teeth enamel and is what gives the tooth its white color.
- Your tooth can survive without the pulp, but what it can’t do is survive long with infected pulp. This is why root canals are necessary as they help remove an infected pulp that may result in the tooth decaying. The pulp provides all the necessary nutrients when the tooth is growing, but once fully formed, then the tooth can go on living without pulp, but an infected one can do quite a bit of damage from the inside.
- An infected pulp can be caused by diseases affecting gum tissue. This is because gum tissues are interconnected with pulp in one’s tooth. Blood vessels and nerves connect the pulp to the gum and because of this, even gum diseases can make its way into infecting the pulp and necessitating a root canal.
- There’s a lot of false facts such as infections being common after a root canal. However, this isn’t the case. Infections are generally very low after a root canal procedure and when an infection does happen they’re very low risk and easily treatable. This makes it a relatively safe procedure to undergo.
You don’t need a lot of powerful painkillers after a root canal procedure. And how much you need is very subjective. Though a root canal procedure cannot guarantee any pain, an average procedure will only require common over the counter pain medication for a few days in order to subdue any pain in one or two weeks. Most of this pain medication is also to ensure the swelling subsides.