Root treatment

Our team is on hand to provide rapid pain relief

Treatment commonly known as a “root canal” consists of removing the dental pulp – the living part of a tooth containing the nerve – from the tooth and leaving it dead. This technique is part of endodontics, or the aspect of dental care that focuses on conditions within the tooth.

Several circumstances may cause necrosis of the dental nerve and therefore require the tooth to be deadened:

• A large cavity with bacteria that have reached the dental pulp
• An accident involving serious impact to the teeth
• Bruxism with necrosis caused by occlusal overload

In particular, root canal treatment can stop pain urgently more or less immediately during episodes of toothache.

The benefit of this “short-term” technique is the patient’s well-being. However, once it’s done, there’s no going back.

In the long term, it causes the mechanical stability of dental tissue to weaken significantly and may cause intrinsic discolouration of the tooth. Furthermore, as the tooth is no longer alive, this means it is no longer capable of transmitting the sensation of pain – meaning it will no longer be able to alert you to the development of a cavity. In dentistry, as in general medicine, pain plays a key role in letting us know when something is up.

For dead teeth, only regular check-ups can ensure a cavity will not be able to destroy a large part of the tooth undetected.

When this does happen, it’s more difficult and more expensive to repair. The complexity of root treatments essentially depends on two factors:

• The number of dental canals requiring treatment in the tooth’s root system, which usually contains between one and three
• The extent of the effect on the jawbone, which supports the tooth and comes into contact with infectious bacteria from the necrotic canal: if the bone is affected, the root treatment is more delicate and its result is less certain. If there has been a significant impact on the jawbone, several steps may be required to boost the treatment’s chances of success