Our Services

Root Canal Treatment

The words “root canal” strike fear in many and, unfortunately, are part of the punch line of many jokes. People often associate the root canal treatment with the toothache they are already experiencing that necessitates the need for this procedure. Simply put, a root canal treatment is a type of filling where the contents of the inside chamber of the tooth, whether it be a dying nerve or infection when the nerve has been dead for a period of time, are removed. The empty chamber and the canals that extend down each root then need to be shaped to make them large enough to be able to fill with a filling material that the immune system doesn’t recognize as needing to attack. If there is infection already, it can make the tooth difficult to anaesthetize and sometimes a course of antibiotics is prescribed to knock back the infection to the point that it can be numbed fully. If the tooth devitalizes (the nerve dies), the only options are a root canal treatment or extraction. Far too many teeth have been unnecessarily removed due to patients not having the proper information as far as what is involved in completing a root canal filling and therefore saving the tooth. We are always happy to explain the treatment, prognosis and costs involved.