Everyday dentists everywhere see patients with dental pain and advise a root canal as treatment to resolve that pain. If your Murfreesboro dentist has scheduled a root canal, it will help you to know what to expect during a root canal.
Your Murfreesboro dentist may recommend a root canal when you’re in danger of losing a permanent tooth. To better understand the procedure and prepare yourself for a root canal you should familiarize yourself with the anatomy of a tooth. During a root canal, after numbing the area around your tooth, your dentist will make an opening in the enamel of your tooth and the hard substance known as dentin below the enamel to begin cleaning and removing its insides. The part of the tooth that is usually inflamed and in need of removal is the pulp, which your dentist will remove with special tools called endodontic files designed for the root canal treatment.
Although the pulp of your tooth is what keeps teeth alive and healthy by providing nourishment via blood vessels especially during development of your teeth, you can still retain the tooth treated by a root canal. After the inflamed pulp is removed, your dentist will complete the root canal treatment by filling the canals of your tooth with a material called gutta-percha. Your Murfreesboro dentist will then place a temporary filling in the opening and you’ll have a crown placed over the tooth during the same appointment or at a later one.