Contrary to what you might have seen in movies and TV shows, a root canal is an incredibly beneficial procedure that can actually ease a great deal of pain. Dentists Jeffrey Mitchell, DDS, and David Crosby, DMD, and their team of compassionate dental experts at Mitchell & Crosby Family Dentistry provide gentle and effective root canal therapy that can restore your damaged tooth, eliminate your pain, and keep your smile healthy and whole. To learn more, schedule a consultation today at their clinic in Casa Grande, Arizona, by calling the office or booking online.
Root Canal Therapy Q & A
What is root canal therapy?
A root canal is a procedure that treats an infected or damaged tooth by removing its pulp. Your tooth pulp is the soft tissue inside of your tooth. It’s made up of nerves, blood vessels, and connective tissues. When your pulp becomes infected, it gets inflamed and pinches the nerves, which causes extreme pain.
Using root canal therapy, the team at Mitchell & Crosby Family Dentistry remove your infected tooth pulp. This allows them to salvage your tooth and prevent the infection from spreading to your jaw and surrounding teeth.
Do I need root canal therapy?
If your tooth pulp is infected or damaged, you’ll likely need root canal therapy. Some of the symptoms of damaged or infected pulp include:
- Immense pain in your tooth
- Increased sensitivity to hot and cold
- A darkened tooth
- Pimplelike bumps on your gums around the tooth
If left untreated, an infected tooth can lead to a number of serious health concerns like:
- Tooth loss
- Deterioration of your jaw bone
- Sepsis (a bacterial blood infection)
- Heart attack and stroke
If you think you have an infected tooth, schedule an appointment with Mitchell & Crosby Family Dentistry immediately. An infected tooth becomes more painful the longer you wait, and delaying treatment increases the chance that you’ll lose the tooth or need to have it extracted.
What actually happens during root canal therapy?
The team begins your root canal therapy by taking a digital X-ray of your smile. This X-ray helps them assess the extent of your infection and gives them a roadmap to guide the procedure.
Next, your dentist administers a local anesthetic and puts a small sheet of rubber in your mouth (called a dental dam) that isolates the infected tooth and keeps it sterile.
After your tooth and mouth are prepped, your dentist drills a hole in the top of your tooth and removes the infected pulp using a series of small files. Since the pulp is dead or decayed, you won’t feel any of the removal.
Once your dentist has extracted all of the diseased pulp, they clean the inside of your tooth with an antibacterial solution, seal your pulp chamber with a rubbery compound called gutta-percha, and close up the hole in the top of your tooth with a filling.
They complete the procedure by fitting you with a permanent crown that restores the function and reinforces the strength of your tooth.
If you have an infected tooth, don’t delay getting root canal therapy. Schedule an appointment with Mitchell & Crosby Family Dentistry today by calling the office or booking a visit online.