Root canal treatment is a dental procedure that removes the infected pulp from a tooth. The pulp is the soft tissue inside your teeth, and it contains blood vessels, nerves, and connective tissues. When you have a root canal, your dentist will remove the infection from the pulp and seal it with a filling material to prevent future infection.
The most common reason for needing a root canal is when a cavity has reached into the pulp. Without treatment, this can lead to pain and swelling in your gums and jawbone. It can also cause other serious health issues such as an abscess or infection spreading through your body.
Here are four ways that root canal treatment improves your dental health:
1. Root Canal Treatment Prevents Tooth Loss
Root canal treatment prevents tooth loss by removing all traces of infection from the root of the tooth. The pulp chamber and root canals are cleaned out and sealed with a special filling material. This prevents bacteria from returning to the area where they could cause further damage to the tooth structure. Without this type of treatment, tooth extraction would likely be necessary due to continued pain from untreated decay or infection.
2. Root Canal Treatment Prevents Abscesses
Infection within your teeth can cause inflammation and pain as well as an infection elsewhere in your body if it spreads through your bloodstream. Abscesses can occur when bacteria get into an area where there's already an infection present — usually within the pulp of a tooth. Root canal treatments prevent abscesses because they remove all traces of bacteria from inside the tooth's pulp chamber before sealing it with filling material.
3. Root Canal Treatment Reduces Future Infection Risk
If left untreated, an infected tooth will eventually die and fall out. This can happen quickly or gradually over several years depending on how long the infection has been present and how much damage has been done to the surrounding bone by the infection.
If you leave an infected tooth untreated, you risk developing further problems such as gum disease or jawbone loss around the tooth's root structure. This can lead to even more expensive treatments later down the line if not properly treated now.
4. Root Canal Treatment Relieves Pain
The pain associated with an infected tooth is usually severe and can be felt in your jaw or face. It may also cause you to grind your teeth at night, which increases the risk of damaging your teeth and gums even further. Root canal treatment relieves this pain by removing the infection from inside the tooth and sealing it up again with a filling or crown so that it's no longer present in the pulp chamber.
Root canal treatment is a procedure that can save your natural teeth and improve your overall dental health. Chat with a dentist to learn more about root canal treatment and how it can improve your oral health.
