Root Canal Treatment

Inside every tooth, beneath the enamel and dentine, is a soft core of nerve and blood vessels that runs down the length of each root. Root canal treatment removes that core, cleans and shapes the narrow canals it occupied, and seals them so bacteria cannot re-establish inside the tooth. The tooth itself stays in your jaw and continues to work.

The canals are fine, curved and often branched, and cleaning every part of them is the whole of the technique. Molars carry three or four canals and take longer than a single-rooted front tooth.

A treated tooth has lost its blood supply and becomes more brittle over the following years, so a back tooth is usually protected with a crown afterwards. Your dentist will tell you at the start whether that is part of the plan, since it affects the number of visits and the total cost.

The treatment is done in the dental chair under local anaesthetic, in one or two visits, and you go home the same day. An injection numbs the tooth and the surrounding gum, and takes a few minutes to work fully.

A thin rubber sheet is clamped around the tooth to keep it dry and to keep the cleaning fluids out of your mouth. Your dentist makes a small opening through the biting surface, finds the canals, and measures the length of each one with a fine electronic probe and an X-ray. The canals are then cleaned with a sequence of fine flexible files while disinfectant is flushed through, and shaped so they can be filled completely.

When the canals are dry and clean they are filled with a rubber-like material and a sealer, and the opening is closed with a filling. A visit takes roughly 45 to 90 minutes, longer for a back tooth. Where infection is heavy, a medicated dressing is left in place and the filling is completed at a second visit a week or two later. The numbness wears off over two to three hours.

There is nothing to recover from beyond soreness. The tooth is usually tender to bite on for two to five days as the ligament around the root settles, and ordinary painkillers handle it. Most people go back to work the same day or the next.

Avoid chewing on that side until the permanent restoration is in place, since a tooth with a temporary filling can split. Where a crown is planned, it is usually fitted one to three weeks later over a further one or two appointments.

A tooth that was painful before treatment often settles within a few days. If pain is increasing after three days, or the face swells, contact your dentist instead of waiting for the review.