Root Canals
Restoring Teeth to Pain-Free Health
Teeth with damaged or infected roots used to require extraction. We try to avoid the extraction of teeth whenever possible. Extracting teeth can cause a lot of problems, such as bone loss and tooth movement. The good news is that we are experienced in a root canal therapies. Root canal therapy is a procedure in which infected and or dead tissue is removed from the inside of a tooth. Often this infected and or dead tissue is the cause of serious toothaches which are usually due to neglected cavities that make their way into the tooth’s nerve. Once the inside of the tooth is thoroughly cleansed and debrided with specific instruments and solutions, we place a filling material inside the tooth to protect the root canal system from future infections.
In the not too distant past, the situation mentioned above would have required that the tooth would need to be extracted. When dentists started performing root canals, they were quite painful, and root canal therapy has received a bad reputation because of this. However, with modern anesthetics, technology, and techniques, the root canals we perform are usually completely painless, like getting a cavity filled. Our patients are often amazed at how much better they feel when the pain caused by the infection is resolved through this therapy.