Treatments
Root canal treatment
One of the most common origins of dental pain is from the dental pulp. Endodontic treatment removes infected or damaged pulp from inside a tooth. The pulp is the soft, sensitive centre of the tooth which includes the blood vessels and the nerve.
There was a time when the only way to deal with this was to extract the tooth, but now with root canal therapy, keeping the tooth and getting rid of the pain is often an excellent option. This can be quite a complex procedure as the canals containing the pulp are a hair’s breadth in places. Therefore, our Endodontist uses an operating microscope to find the canals and clean out the bacteria and dead pulp material both chemically and mechanically. The clean canals are then shaped and sealed with materials which keep the bacteria out. This means that in most cases you can keep your tooth for many years. The success rate of root canal therapy will depend on a number of factors including the use of meticulous, internationally recognised techniques and whether this is the first time a tooth has been root-filled. Root canal therapy using these techniques, the first-time round, gives the best results. Where the tooth has been previously root-treated, the job of overcoming the infection becomes more difficult but not impossible.
After root treatment of a back tooth, it is usually necessary to place a crown or onlay on the tooth to strengthen it.
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