Give a Tooth a Life Preserver — Root Canals

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Root canal. All you have to do is say those two words and people get nervous. It’s as if they’re watching a rerun of an old movie called Marathon Man where Dustin Hoffman had a Nazi doctor drilling his teeth to get information out of him.

The reality of a root canal is something altogether different. A root canal is like a life preserver for your tooth. Kind of like what they throw to someone who falls off one of the big cruise ships docked in Miami. Root canals not only prevent a damaged tooth from needing to be extracted, but they aren’t painful either. In fact, a root canal involves about the same degree of discomfort as having a cavity filled.

Say what?

It’s true. In this blog, let’s get past the myths about root canals. By the way, we perform root canals right in our Melbourne offices, so you don’t need to traipse about finding an endodontist.

The treatment is painful.

It isn’t true that a root canal is painful. This misperception of the procedure and the pain “supposedly” involved must come from long ago when anesthesia and dental practices weren’t as advanced as they are now.

The condition that creates the need for the root canal — a heavily decayed and infected tooth — IS painful. Once infection enters the pulp of the tooth, there it finds the nerves in the tooth and there you’ll find lots of pain.

A root canal removes that infected/decayed tissue, including the nerves in the tooth, and relieves this extreme pain. Modern technology has made it possible for a root canal treatment to be almost “painless.” Plus, after it’s done your tooth no longer has any sensation because the nerves have been removed.

Tooth extraction is a good alternative to a root canal procedure.

Extraction used to be a viable alternative, but those days are long gone. Dr. Brown and Dr. Vaughn strive to keep the natural tooth if at all possible, and a root canal procedure can do that. By keeping your natural teeth, you can continue to eat whatever you want. Also, root canal treatment is a cost-effective method of treating a tooth with infected pulp. The success rate in keeping the tooth, if there is enough healthy tooth remaining, is very high with root canals.

The procedure causes illness.

This is nothing more than a dental “urban legend.” There isn’t a shred of evidence that root canal treatments cause various illnesses in the body. It is a safe and effective procedure that eliminates bacteria, prevents reinfection, and salvages your natural tooth. The fact is, if you don’t remove the infection in your tooth, then the infection can spread to other areas of your body.

Do you have a tooth that is very sensitive or downright painful? Decay may have made its way into the pulp and you could need a root canal. Call the team at Implant Dentistry of Florida, (321) 372-7700, and let’s check it out.

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