Get Out of Pain Today
The purpose of a root canal is to help when the tooth has a damaged nerve that cannot be restored any other way. The nerve has to come out of the tooth, but you get to keep the tooth. The root stays there. The tooth looks the way it did, but taking that out allows us to keep the tooth healthy, and they can keep that tooth for hopefully a lifetime. Without that, the only other choice is to have the tooth removed. A root canal is a more cost-effective way to fix a tooth rather than removing it and restoring it with an implant or a bridge.
Most people that I discuss that they may need a root canal, their first concern is, is it going to be uncomfortable? The technology that we have today and our treatment that we use today is much different than it was 10, 15, or 20 years ago. So most patients, when we’re done with a root canal, are surprised. They’ll go, ‘Was that it?’ That’s the one thing I do need to talk to patients and let them understand that the stories that they may have heard in the past are not exactly true today. We have made advances in the way we do root canals, and so root canals can certainly be done very comfortably, where mild soreness is maybe all they may experience.