Are Root Canals Painful?

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“I’d rather get a root canal!” How many times have you heard that?! While all pain is relative to the person experiencing it, historically speaking, wilmington root canals seem to have an ability to instill a fright that could be completely unwarranted! Perhaps they were painful in decades past but with today’s medical advances and technological developments, root canal therapy is no longer something to be feared!

What Causes the Pain?

There seems to be some misunderstanding that the root canal therapy treatment is what hurts. This is not the case! The pain stems from the infection in the canal of the tooth root.

Your Endodontist will administer anesthetic and while these injections do not feel great, they are significantly less painful than an infected tooth. Once you are sufficiently numb, they will proceed with the procedure.

The root of a tooth has tissue in it, called pulp. During a root canal, the Endodontist removes infected tissue and clean out the canal. You indeed may experience some slight discomfort in the days immediately following the procedure but it will be short-lived, subsiding as the tooth and surrounding tissue calms down. You can go about your day right after a root canal.

Is Extraction Better?

No! Most Dentists will strive to help you maintain as much natural tooth structure and as many of your organic teeth as possible. While there are wonderful options to replace a missing tooth, implants and bridges being a couple of those options, it is always preferable to save a tooth.

Going through with an unnecessary extraction could cause more trouble than you bargained for! If you do not replace the tooth and fill the space, your remaining teeth will move as they try to fill the new space. So that would lead you to require either a surgically placed implant or a bridge which will affect the neighboring teeth since they will have to have crowns placed over them to stabilize the pontic used to fill the space.

Having a root canal is immensely less likely to cause much stress to your mouth and body. The only thing required after you have completed root canal therapy with your Endodontist is to pay one quick visit to your Dentist so they can fill the hole left by the root canal procedure or place a crown.

Hopefully, we have relieved some fears and hesitations. Root canal therapy is a quick procedure and it will get you out of pain. While it is an invasive procedure, it is much less invasive than having a tooth extracted and replaced with an implant. Root canal treated teeth can last for the rest of your life when properly restored by your Dentist.

More on Root Canals : What is a Root Canal?