When you can’t concentrate on your work or when you worry less about the food and more about the chewing, it’s time to get in to see you Switch dentist for a consultation. Toothaches, abscesses, dead teeth and infected roots are painful and debilitating. Root canals are designed to treat infected nerves within a tooth.
Nerve infections are often caused by injury or decay. Inside the tooth are all sorts of soft tissues like the nerve and blood vessels as well as the sensory nerves, which carry signals back to the brain. If these inner tissues are infected or no longer healthy, dentists can help relieve the pain. Dentists have to delve a little deeper with a root canal. Root canals are generally completed within two visits over a couple of weeks. Two visits ensures that the infection is permanently removed.
All root canal treatments are anaesthetised to numb the area. The tooth is surrounded by a rubber dam to isolate it from the other parts of your mouth. The area around your tooth is kept clean and free of saliva and tooth debris. This is a sanitary process and removes any risk of spreading or aggravating the tooth before, during and after the root canal.
Root Canal Treatment in Lower Hutt
We offer root canal treatment in Lower Hutt. Your first visit concentrates on removing any infection and inflammation. The enflamed tooth is drilled into so that the inner nerve canal is exposed. The dentist removes excess decay and uses special files to clean the inner canal and remove the nerve. The dentist will clean, then medicate the tooth and surrounding area to allow pain relief and fast healing without risk of further infection. The hole is also plugged with a temporary filling.
Once the dentist is sure all the infected area has been removed (some teeth have more than one root canal!), our dentists at Switch Dental Lower Hutt set about filling the empty canal. The dentist will check on the progress of the canal and ensure there is no presence of infection in the tooth. The interior canal is packed with a permanent filling until it’s all filled up. Afterwards, a normal filling seals the exterior hole.
Root canals remove material from the inner and deeper parts of the tooth, such as dental pulp. Dental pulp is the material in your tooth that senses hot or cold, hydrates and keeps your tooth’s structure. If it’s infected and cleaned out by a dentist, your tooth can be left a bit weaker than those around it.
We recommend crowning the tooth afterwards to ensure maximum strength and protection. Of course, you can discuss this with your dentist as well. Since your root canal can leave the tooth pain free but a bit brittle, we suggest adding a bit more protection around the outside. That way, all the hard work put into removing the problem won’t be laid to waste. Our priority is your health and confidence with gentle dental care and treatments that will last.
A root canal is a safe procedure that removes the pain from your tooth and benefits your overall oral health and wellbeing. With a root canal at Switch Dental, we want to make sure you can have your cake and enjoy eating it too!
