Dental Root Canal  Changing Your View Of Root Canals

The dental root canal may be one of the most misunderstood procedures in all of dentistry. Discovering that one needs a root canal treatment evokes a high level of irrational fear and anxiety.

A proper understanding of this simple dental procedure should help you conquer this irrational fear, relax and have a better experience.

In my 20+ years as an endodontist (root canal specialist) I have been asked this question many times:
Does the dentist pull the dental nerve out of my tooth?

This is a common misconception of a dental root canal and yet it is what causes so much nervousness. Root canals and "the dental nerve" seem to go hand-in-hand in the minds of most people.

The reason for this close association is that most toothaches are treated with a dental root canal. Of course most people associate a toothache with a painful dental nerve.

Therefore a root canal must involve taking the nerve out of the tooth and taking a nerve out must be very painful.

But this explanation is only partly true. There is nerve tissue inside the tooth that is removed during a dental root canal. This dental nerve tissue is located within the dental pulp.

However this pulp tissue contains more than nerve fibers. It also contains blood and lymphatic vessels. It isn't accurate to think of the dental pulp as a big nerve sitting inside the tooth.

The dental pulp is actually a very complex interesting piece of soft tissue.

It serves a very important function when you are a child. This is the tissue that builds the hard structures of your tooth. Once this is completed the dental pulp serves no vital function in maintaining your tooth.

The problem occurs when this pulp tissue gets inflamed. There are several possible causes of this occurring:

• deep decay
• deep filling
• prior crown
• cracked tooth
• trauma

But not all inflammation of the pulp requires a dental root canal. Some mild inflammation can eventually heal on its own. We call this reversible pulp inflammation.

However, some inflammation becomes so intense that it will never resolve on its own. We call this irreversible pulp inflammation. When this occurs a dental root canal will be necessary.

By the way, this isn’t the same as a tooth abscess. An abscessed tooth is one where the dental pulp has progressed past the inflamed condition and has become infected. This also requires a dental root canal to be performed.

The root canal procedure is performed through a small opening made in the tooth. Small root canal instruments are then used to clean out the inflamed or infected pulp tissue. Different irrigating solutions are also used to make sure that the inside of the tooth is as clean as possible.

The dental root canal is then completed by placing a root canal filling in the space created on the inside of the roots.

I’ve performed thousands of root canals as a root canal specialist and have been asked this and many other questions by fearful patients.

To help people conquer their irrational fear I wrote the short book, The Relaxed Root Canal.

 You’ll find this question in chapter 5 of The Relaxed Root Canal.  For more information CLICK HERE.

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