Treatment

Endodontics

Endodontics (from the Greek endo "inside"; and odons "tooth") is one of dental specialties recognized by the American Dental Association, Royal College of Dentists of Canada, and Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons, and deals with the tooth pulp and the tissues surrounding the root of a tooth. Endodontists perform a variety of procedures including root canal therapy, endodontic retreatment, surgery, treating cracked teeth, and treating dental trauma. Root canal therapy is one of the most common procedures. If the pulp (containing nerves, arterioles, venules, lymphatic tissue, and fibrous tissue) becomes diseased or injured, endodontic treatment is required to save the tooth.
Endodontic therapy(“endodontic” comes from the Greek word eno meaning "within" and the Greek word odous meaning "tooth"), also known as a root canal treatment, is a treatment of the tooth aimed at clearing infection, as well as protecting the tooth from subsequent infections. The treatment is carried out in the pulp of the tooth.

If the pulp cannot repair itself (when it is injured or diseased) it dies. Pulp death can occur as a result of a deep cavity or a cracked tooth. Bacteria get in, either through a crack, a cavity or a loose filling, and eventually destroy the pulp. The patient with a pulp (root canal) injury will find his tooth is very sensitive to high and low temperatures, he may feel pain when chewing, and there may be a continuous throbbing pain.

Without treatment the infection will spread and the tooth will eventually loosen and fall out. Some patients may prefer to have the tooth pulled out, especially if it hurts a lot. However, extracting a tooth may cause the surrounding teeth to become crooked. If your teeth are crooked you cannot usually manage a good bite. Endodontic therapy will usually stop the tooth from falling out and eliminate the pain.

Endodontic therapy involves the complete removal of everything that lies in the root canal. The hollow area is then cleaned, shaped and decontaminated. Miniscule files and irrigation solutions are used. An inert filling, such as gutta percha, fills up the hollow, along with a eugenol-based cement.

After endodontic therapy the tooth is dead. The patient will no longer feel any pain on that tooth because the nerve tissue has been taken out and the infection has been eliminate

For some patients, root canal therapy is one of the most feared dental procedures, perhaps because of a painful abscess that necessitated the root canal procedure. However, dental professionals assert that modern root canal treatment is relatively painless because the pain can be controlled with a local anaesthetic during the procedure and pain control medication can be used before and/or after treatment.