What Are the Three Stages of Root Canal Treatment?
Have you received a suggestion from the dentist in Oak Lawn for needing a root canal? You might have several questions and concerns about this specific treatment. However, you can help yourself by remaining unconcerned about root canals because modern dentistry and technology have made the process as comfortable as getting a dental filling.
Present-day root canals are entirely painless and incredibly successful. What happens when receiving root canal treatment near you from the oak lawn dentist? We describe the different stages of root canal therapy to ease your anxiety.
Stage I — Infected Pulp Diagnosis
The Oak Lawn dentist doesn’t recommend root canals merely by looking at your teeth. They would have suggested the treatment after you approached them with excruciating pain in a specific tooth and mentioned you also have lingering sensitivity to temperatures. You might have reported that the pain subsides for some time before returning with additional ferocity.
The dentist would have examined your tooth besides taking x-rays to determine whether the soft center of the tooth, the dental pulp, is infected or inflamed. Root canals become necessary only when you have dental pulp infections invisible to the naked eye. The pain and temperature sensitivity you experience is a symptoms of having dental pulp infections because you either ignored getting fillings for a cavity or left a damaged tooth untreated, thinking it was a minor issue. The dentist would have recommended a root canal only after ruling out other issues by determining the severity of the damage in your tooth.
Stage II — Eliminating the Infected Dental Pulp
After using digital imaging to view the infected pulp within the tooth, the Oak lawn dentist performing endodontics near you drills a small access hole in the tooth’s crown to expose the dental pulp. Next, the dentist uses flexible surgical tools to clean the root canals by removing the infected dental pulp and applying antibiotics to ensure no infections remain in the tooth to result in problems. Next, the canals are disinfected and cleaned before filling them with a rubber-like biocompatible material, gutta-percha.
The access hole created to expose the dental pulp is filled by the dentist with a temporary filling advising you to restore your tooth with a permanent filling or a dental crown after you recover from the treatment.
Stage III — Getting the Tooth Restored
You will require a week or more to recover from the endodontic therapy you received to eradicate an infection within your tooth. Meanwhile, you must care for the treated tooth appropriately by refraining from crunchy and hard foods and avoiding alcohol and smoking during your recovery. In addition, you will experience some discomfort from the treatment, which is expected after any painful surgical procedure. However, the Oak lawn dentist recommends a prescription or over-the-counter painkillers to help manage the pain.
You receive instructions from the dentist not to brush the treated tooth aggressively for fear of dislodging the temporary filling. Therefore while you can brush and floss your remaining teeth, you must remain gentle near the affected tooth until you have it restored by visiting your dentist after you recover.
You must ensure you don’t wait for a lengthy period before restoring your tooth. Instead, you must schedule your appointment with your dentist as soon as possible to have the tooth fixed with a restoration of your choice.
A permanent filling in the tooth will satisfy the requirements of root canal treatment. However, it helps if you understand the removal of the dental pulp from within your tooth renders it fragile, making it prone to fractures and breakage later. Therefore you must discuss dental crowns with your dentist that help comprehensively fix your tooth, providing it the strength, aesthetics, and the ability to function like your remaining teeth.
The dental crown procedure requires you to wait for another three weeks because it needs customization from a dental laboratory after the affected tooth is reshaped to accommodate it. Dental crowns are not affordable restorations but are essential if you want to protect your natural tooth and have it in your mouth without sustaining additional damage or infections that might need further intensive treatments from dentists.
The dentist completes the stages of root canals in one or two appointments depending on which tooth is infected and the severity of the infection. However, the treatment helps preserve your natural tooth instead of extracting it and leaving you searching for replacement options.
Forrest Tower DDS performs many root canals helping people preserve their natural teeth instead of removing them. If you need endodontic therapy to overcome the severe pain you feel in a specific tooth, kindly consult this practice to receive root canal therapy.