Root Canal Treatment – An Effective Means of Saving Infected Teeth

Root canals get a bad name, and they shouldn’t. People who get root canal treatments in Chippewa Falls understand that today’s root canals are much more effective and much less painful than root canals in the past. Root canals actually work to save your teeth, which makes them amazing.

What Are Root Canals?

Another name for a root canal is endodontic therapy, which means “inside the tooth”. This description is accurate, because root canals take place inside a tooth. Dental clinics in Chippewa Falls use root canals as a way to save a tooth that is infected. Infected teeth start out as a tiny cavity. Over time, the bacteria that cause cavities bores into the tooth enamel. Dentists try to find and fill these cavities quickly, because they know that cavities continue to grow until they are filled. If the cavity has time to grow, it will eventually grow into the tooth pulp, which is the center of your tooth. When the tooth pulp is infected, the infection becomes painful, especially when the tooth nerves are involved. Root canals work to clear the tooth of the infection and save the tooth. While it is possible for a root canal to fail, the odds of that happening are relatively low. If for whatever the root canal does fail, we can retreat the affected tooth to finish cleaning out anything that may have missed or grown, since the original procedure.

How Is A Root Canal Performed?

The Family Dental Center in Chippewa Falls may first take an x-ray of your infected tooth in order to determine the extent of the infection. The area around your tooth is numbed so that you will not be in pain during the procedure. We make an incision on the top of your tooth so that we can get to the source of your infection. We can use tools to clean out your infected tooth pulp. After the infected tooth pulp is cleaned out, we may use antibiotics inside your tooth. We will also fill the space left inside your tooth with a composite filling, so that your tooth remains strong. Once we’re sure that we’ve gotten all the infection out, we then place a crown on top of your tooth to keep it strong and protected.

If you are worried about a tooth, or you are in pain from a tooth, you need to get it looked at as soon as possible. Come visit us and get that tooth checked out!