Root canal therapy in Tarzana is a restorative dental treatment that involves removing decayed or diseased dental pulp from the inside of your tooth.
Your tooth consists of three crucial layers: the outer tooth enamel, the underlying dentin, and the innermost dental pulp. The dental pulp consists of living tissue—blood vessels and nerves.
Sometimes, an infection may start at the outermost layer and spread to the dental pulp. When this happens, you’re likely to experience severe pain. Undergoing root canal therapy gets rid of the pain while also restoring your dental function.
Root canal therapy near you is also referred to as root canal treatment, root canal retreatment, endodontic treatment, and endodontic therapy. To schedule your root canal treatment, please call LA Endodontics today.
Signs You Require Root Canal Treatment
Certain tell-tale signs can point to the need for root canal treatment. They include:
- Severe toothache, especially when you apply chewing pressure.
- Heightened sensitivity to heat and cold, even after removing the hot or cold stimuli.
- Tooth discoloration.
- Persistent pimple on the gums.
- Tender or swollen gums.
In some cases, one may require root canal treatment even if no symptoms are present.
Root Canal Therapy Step-by-Step Process
Root canal therapy is similar to a tooth filling procedure. However, our dentists near you drill much deeper during root canal treatment than they would during a dental filling procedure.
The steps involved in root canal therapy are as follows:
- Dr. Gabreal Shamtoub in Tarzana obtains your dental x-rays to determine the curvature of your root canals and check if the infection has spread to the surrounding bone.
- Dr. Shamtoub numbs the tooth using local anesthesia.
- Dr. Shamtoub carefully drills an access hole into the infected tooth. The access hole allows the dentist to remove all infected pulp, bacteria, and debris from the tooth.
- Using root canal files of varying sizes, our dentist gets rid of all infected matter from the inside of your tooth.
- Next, the dentist disinfects your tooth.
- If necessary, the dentist places medication inside your tooth to clear the infection.
- Finally, the dentist seals the tooth using a rubber-like material known as gutta-percha.
- If necessary, the dentist creates a custom crown to rebuild the tooth’s function and appearance.
If you’ve been experiencing persistent toothaches and heightened dental sensitivity, you may require root canal therapy. Reach out to LA Endodontics for more information.
Faqs
Prolonged or extra sensitivity to hot or cold temperatures, pain to chewing or to the touch, pain and swelling, drainage and tenderness in the lymph nodes and nearby bone and gum tissues. Signs of discoloration of the tooth. Sometimes, there may be no symptoms or signs at all.
Most common indication of an emergency root canal treatment is when you must take pain medications to alleviate your dental pain, or when there is swelling associated with a particular tooth/ area of the oral cavity.
The root canal treatment procedure takes between one hour to one and a half hours. Our goal is to complete treatment in one visit. There are cases where treatment cannot be completed in one visit due to extra infection or condition of the tooth. In those cases a special medication is placed in the root canal and a temporary filling is placed on the tooth, and treatment will be continued at a later time.
Luckily these days, with the advent of good local anesthesia, most patients do not report any pain during root canal treatment. We test the tooth to make sure it is completely numb before starting the treatment. However, slight discomfort after the root canal is expecting, depending on the pain level before the treatment.
Most teeth after a root canal treatment will require a crown. There are certain cases that a composite restoration will be enough. We will discuss this matter before and after the root canal treatment.
Because we use the dental microscope and take a CBCT scan prior starting the root canal treatment, we are able to perform the root canal treatment very conservatively. Therefore, if you have an existing crown on your tooth, in most case we are able to drill through your crown and complete the root canal treatment without removing the crown. This will save you money and dental chair time after the root canal treatment.
If your root canal treatment is performed under Local Anesthesia, and / or under Nitrous Oxide gas (also known as laughing gas), then you are able to drive home by yourself after treatment. However, if you take any other medication that can impair your motor and judgment skills you are not allowed to drive home alone. Please consult with us if you are taking any other medication that we have not recommended.
Most patients go back to work and their daily life routine after leaving our office. They will continue to be numb for another 2-3 hours, so they must be careful to not chew their lip and cheeks. Some patients who come in with pain before the treatment are expected to be in slight discomfort for a day or two after the treatment, but with the help of over the counter pain medications they feel better.
Root Canal Retreatment is where an endodontist is the best expert to consult. If someone had a root canal procedure on their tooth in the past and are feeling discomfort when they eat on the tooth, or touch the tooth, or if they have swelling on the area around the root canal treated tooth then definitely make an appointment to evaluate the dental infection. Some patients may not have any symptoms, but after an evaluation of 2-dimensional xray and 3-dimensional CBCT scan we can identify bone loss and infection associated with a previously root canal treated tooth. Treatment plan options will be discussed with the patient based on the clinical findings.
Apexification is an endodontic procedure indicated when teeth are not fully formed and the root canal has an open end. With the use of a dental microscope we place a special material called MTA at the end of the roots to block and aid the formation of the root canal system, then we fill in the canals with gutta percha material.
For almost all root canal procedures we recommend a one year follow up.
