Questions And Answers: Root Canals

There is a particular restorative treatment that typically comes with the greatest amount of questions when we recommend it. Can you guess what it is? If you said, “root canal” then you are spot on. You see, root canal treatment is completely comfortable and has the ability to rescue your tooth. Unfortunately, by the time patients make it to our practice, they have often heard an extremely mixed bag of misinformation. Rather than rely on hearsay, we suggest you consider the information we provide, so you can feel relieved, happy that you can keep your tooth, and confident about your appointment.

Q&A: Root Canal Treatment

Question: How do you decide if I need root canal treatment?

Answer: We suggest a root canal for a patient suffering from an infected tooth. Since we cannot simply look at your tooth or speak with you about symptoms and know that the tooth is infected, we will need to further investigate with advanced imaging. Only once we reach a final diagnosis and see the infection will we move forward with treatment.

Question: Is there any way for me to recognize that I have an infected tooth before I visit you?

Answer: In some cases, you may not know your dental pulp is infected. This is a good reason to keep up with preventive visits (we can detect a problem during your checkups). However, a toothache, throbbing discomfort, bad taste in your mouth, pain when you bite down, or a bump on the gum tissue near your tooth may all point to an underlying infection.

Question: What will my smile look like and feel like once the root canal treatment is over? Will you protect my tooth?

Answer: Once we complete your root canal treatment, your tooth will quickly feel much better, since removing the infection removes the source of discomfort. We will protect your tooth with the placement of a custom crown.