Root Canal Treatment  

A root canal is a dental procedure that is used to save a tooth that would otherwise be extracted.

The medical term for root canal therapy is Endodontics from the Greek Endo, meaning inside and Dont, meaning tooth. This is fundamentally what we are doing, we are treating the inside of the tooth. Teeth are made up of different layers, on the outside is the hard enamel which gives the teeth their hard-white exterior, underneath the enamel is the dentine. The dentine forms the body of the tooth and root. And in the centre of the tooth is the pulp. This is the area that we are interested in when we perform root canal therapy. The pulp consists of blood vessels and nerves that supply the tooth.

The main reason that you need a root canal is that some bacteria has got into the inside of your tooth. Bacteria can enter the tooth by a hole made by tooth decay, a fracture in the tooth or by trauma that exposes the nerve of the tooth. Once the bacteria are inside your tooth it causes inflammation. Unlike other parts of the body where the inflammation can spread out, the inside of the tooth is a sealed space. This means that pressure starts to build up and this leads to pain.

If the bacteria are not removed, then the tooth will become infected; this infection can eventually spread through the whole tooth and into the jaw underneath the tooth leading to an abscess.

To fix the problem the infected nerve needs to be removed, there are two methods of doing this. You can extract the tooth, removing the tooth will remove the infected tissue within the tooth, but will mean that you have lost a tooth, the other option is to remove all of the bacteria and infected tissue from within the tooth, leaving the tooth intact and sealing it back up so no new bacteria can get back in. This is the process known as the root canal filling.