Why Root Canal Therapy Is Not As Painful As You Think?

Everyone complains root canals are excruciatingly painful and are better avoided if recommended by dentists. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth because root canals help eliminate the pain you feel in a specific tooth instead of causing more pain.

You receive a recommendation for root canal therapy in Southampton, PA, because you visit the dentist complaining of excruciating pain in your tooth emanating from an untreated cavity, chips or breaks in the tooth, repeated procedures on the same tooth, et cetera.

The dentist doesn’t recommend a root canal merely by looking at your mouth. Instead, they take x-rays to determine the extent of the damage your tooth has incurred and inquire about your symptoms, including pain and tenderness besides temperature sensitivity in the affected tooth. The dentist suggests you undergo a root canal only after evaluating your condition, requesting that you have the treatment as soon as possible to ensure you preserve your natural tooth.

Why Do People Complain About Root Canal Pain?

In the days gone past, dentists did not have the technology or modern anesthetics to perform intensive procedures like root canals to eliminate infections inside your tooth. Instead, they had to rely on the available technology and anesthesia to drill the affected tooth, use outdated instruments to remove the infected dental pulp, and clean the canals before filling and sealing them.

Fortunately, contemporary dentists have modern equipment, training, and advanced anesthetics besides sedation to ensure you will not feel discomfort when sitting in the dentist’s chair and getting the infection in your tooth eliminated by the professional.

Does It Indicate That Root Canals Are Painless?

A root canal treatment near me is a painful therapy that will likely make you jump out of the dentist’s chair if the professional tried to expose the infection within your tooth without anesthesia. Therefore while the procedure isn’t painless, dentists ensure your mouth is entirely numb, and you are completely relaxed by giving you sedation for relaxation and local anesthesia for pain management. In addition, with the medications provided by the dentist, you will likely not feel anything for the duration of the root canal.

Your mouth continues to remain numb even after the dentist completes removing the infected dental pulp, cleans the canals, disinfects them, and fills and seals them with a biocompatible rubberlike material, gutta-percha. You will regain sense of your mouth approximately four to six hours after receiving the therapy. However, the discomfort remains with you for roughly a week until you recover from the treatment and restore the tooth with a dental crown.

The painless feature of root canals is limited to your appointment for the therapy and about six hours after the treatment. However, any discomfort you experience from a root canal results from the procedure to eliminate the infection in your tooth and not the condition itself. Therefore, consider the minor pain from a tooth-preserving treatment an inconvenience that helps prevent substantial expenditure.

Managing Discomfort after a Root Canal

The dentist performing the root canal is fully aware you will experience mild to moderate pain from the therapy as the anesthesia starts wearing off. Therefore, while leaving the dentist’s office, they prescribe or suggest taking painkillers during your recovery to manage discomfort from the therapy. The painkillers help alleviate pain during your recovery besides following the dentist’s instructions of not biting or chewing with the treated tooth and keeping your mouth clean by using saltwater rinses because you might find brushing and flossing challenging during an initial couple of days after undergoing treatment.

You can expect additional pain when you visit your regular dentist to restore the tooth with a dental crown because tooth restoration requires tooth structure removal and wearing a temporary acrylic crown until you receive a customized restoration created by a dental laboratory to protect your tooth.

Root canals are not entirely painless, but you will likely not feel discomfort when undergoing the treatment. This is because any pain you experience from the therapy results from the procedure, not the infection inside your tooth. In addition, the therapy helps preserve your natural tooth after you restore it with a dental crown to remain in your mouth for many years after receiving the treatment.

Sleek Smile Studio performs many root canals on infected teeth to help eliminate excruciating pain besides temperature sensitivity in the affected tooth. They use minimally invasive procedures with modern technology and anesthesia. If you experience a similar situation, kindly arrange a meeting with them to receive a treatment that helps preserve your natural tooth.