Root Canal Therapy

It is the treatment to remove an infection, and often the damaged nerve, deep inside the root of a tooth

What Is Root Canal?

Inside each tooth is a tube that runs from the end of the root to a chamber inside the crown. This is the root canal and inside the canal is the tooth’s blood and nerve supply, known as the ‘pulp’. The incisor and canine teeth normally have one root and one root canal. Premolar teeth can have one or two roots, and molars two or three, with up to five separate root canals.

More information about RCT

It’s a painless modern treatment to save teeth that would otherwise have to be taken out, allowing you to keep your own teeth for a long time.

Root Canal Therapy FAQs

Bacteria can get into this chamber either from dental decay or directly from the mouth if a filling is lost. Once bacteria are established, blood supply to the nerve diminishes and the tooth begins to die. When this happens, the only way to save the tooth is to remove the infection and dying nerve – a procedure called root canal therapy. Unfortunately, antibiotics alone can’t kill the bacteria and the only option, other than root canal therapy, is to have the tooth extracted. Sometimes root canal therapy is also used to save a tooth with a large filling or a crown, or a tooth that has suffered trauma.

In root canal therapy, the pulp and nerve tissue are removed from inside the root canals. The canals are then thoroughly cleaned, then filled and sealed with a special inert material.

It is highly recommended to crown Root Canal treated teeth to avoid them from fracturing which would lead to their removal.

Normally we recommend to crown a root canal treated teeth almost immediately after the pain and discomfort from the Root Canal therapy has diminished, that is usually within one or two weeks after treatment. In severely infected cases, your dentist might advise you to wait for about six months, to understand if your Root Canal treatment was successful, before you invest additional time and money on the crown.