Have you ever wonder where the pain comes from when a tooth hurts? Well, the tooth may look just like a pearly white, but this pearly white has a space inside where a nerve center resides. We call the nerve the pulp tissue and the space where the nerve resides we call it the pulp chamber. When a tooth has been damaged, knocked, fractured, decayed, cracked or has deep filling or has a crown, the tooth fires the pain alarm. This pain signal indicates that the nerve tissue is dying or that the space inside the tooth has become infected by bacteria that leads to tooth abscess or infection . The tooth can be saved by an endodontic (endo-inside, dontic-tooth) procedure or also called root canal treatment procedure.
The procedure involves the use of different dental tools and instrumentation to access this tricky tooth area and microscopic part of the tooth. First the area is numbed with local anesthetic, then a rubber dam is placed to isolate the tooth from saliva and the tongue along with other oral moving anatomy. The tooth then is accessed with a series of dental tools, the internal part of the tooth requires finer and specialized dental instrumentation. Once the internal part of the tooth is accessed, flexible files are used to remove bacteria, tooth debris and damaged tissue. Irrigation is very important in order to keep the space clean and smooth, so that the tip of the root can be easily accessed and cleaned. Radiographs (x-rays) are taken to confirm the proper instrumentation of the canal or space, once this is confirmed the area is irrigated once again and then nicely dry, a dental sealer is used to fill the cleaned root space, the sealer is used to stop the infiltration of bacteria of fluid not belonging inside the tooth. With the pain gone, root of the tooth sealed, bacteria gone, the access cavity of the tooth restored and the surrounding bone healed, the tooth gets to chew another day