Root Canals Performed By An Endodontist

If you have ever needed major dental work or oral surgery, you may have needed the experience and expertise of an endodontist. Alternatively, that type of oral healthcare professional may be in your near future if you have difficulty with root canals or dental trauma. While most folks fear regular and routine dental visits for cleanings and other benign procedures, the stuff that dental horror movies are made of usually involve work that is commonly performed by an endodontist.

Root canal procedures, oral and jaw surgery, repair of cracked or missing teeth, and treatment of emergent or non-emergent dental trauma is the bread and butter of endodontics. This profession is a dental subspecialty that requires a few extra years of training before the dentist is qualified to perform these procedures.

The most common and often most feared procedure that this type of dental professional performs is the root canal treatment. This therapy is aimed at diagnosing and removing infected and diseased tooth pulp that contains a variety of sensitive materials such as nerves, arteries, veins, lymphatic draining tissue and fibrous tissue. When a friend or co-worker tells you they have to go get a root canal done, you probably look at them with sympathy whether or not you have experienced the procedure first-hand.

However, even though it may seem like this profession is immensely unpopular, it is actually an extremely important field of dentistry. Without endodontics, many patients would suffer unbearable pain for years before decayed or rotting teeth fall out on their own. Leaving decayed and rotting tooth material in your mouth can lead to systemic infections that reach your bloodstream and are extremely dangerous. As such, it is important to have tooth pain evaluated by a professional as soon as possible.

Advances in techniques and technology in the field of dentistry have also evolved to make this profession much less scary and much more comfortable than it used to be in the past. Dentists that were usually feared and avoided are now visited more often for frequent cleanings thanks to many of the advances that help keep the patient comfortable throughout the visit. Inhaled or injected medications can help calm patients fears and induce a state of relaxation that makes dental work much more enjoyable. This type of situation is perfect for root canal work done by an endodontist because it alleviates much of the real or imagined pain involved in the procedure. For most dental visits, relaxation is half the battle and ensuring the patient is calm and comfortable goes a long way to performing a quick and successful procedure.