What Should I Expect During the Procedure?
Our highly skilled dentist at Big Smile Dental will administer a numbing medication for your comfort, and the tooth to be treated will be isolated from the rest of your mouth with a thin rubber or vinyl sheet called a dental dam. This keeps naturally existing mouth bacteria away from the treated tooth, resulting in a sterile environment.
During this dental treatment, the inner part of the tooth is accessed via a small hole to remove diseased soft tissue with special instruments. The tooth is then cleaned out and disinfected. Without pulp and nerve tissue, the tooth will no longer feel pain, and patients can sleep and eat comfortably once more.
Root canals will also be shaped, filled, and sealed with an adhesive material to prevent bacteria from re-entering the tooth and causing future infection. The hole created to access the pulp chamber is also filled. Suppose tooth decay has advanced to where there is insufficient structure to hold the temporary filling in place. In that case, you will be instructed to avoid chewing on that tooth until it receives its permanent filling, which can be placed a few days later.
A temporary crown is placed to protect the prepared tooth as it heals, while the permanent crown is made in a lab. After around two weeks, you’ll return to the Big Smile Dental office to get your permanent, new tooth. Then the fun part starts: You get to enjoy a better-looking smile, free of pain. You can enjoy your new tooth for a long time because modern root canal-treated teeth can last a lifetime.