At Jessamine Family Dentistry, we are aware of what an emergency is - If you’re experiencing tooth pain, whether sharp and throbbing or dull and achy, it can be difficult to bite and chew, concentrate, get through the day, even sleep at night, no matter what over-the-counter medication you take for some relief.
The source of tooth pain may be dental decay, an injury or an infection in the tooth. Regardless of the cause, if you have ongoing pain it’s time to see a dentist or endodontist for treatment. In the meantime, read on for information on common pain symptoms, possible causes and some steps you can take to ease the discomfort.
Our 7 day a week availability helps us to get you in and start what is called a root canal procedure. The nerve of the tooth is removed. The tooth is disinfected and a filling material is placed inside the tooth.
The standard filling material is gutta-percha, a natural polymer prepared from latex from the percha (Palaquium gutta) tree. The standard endodontic technique involves inserting a gutta-percha cone (a "point") into the cleaned-out root canal along with a sealing cement. Another technique uses melted or heat-softened gutta-percha which is then injected or pressed into the root canal passage(s). However, since gutta-percha shrinks as it cools, thermal techniques can be unreliable and sometimes a combination of techniques is used. Gutta-percha is radiopaque, allowing verification afterwards that the root canal passages have been completely filled and are without voids.
Pain control can be difficult to achieve at times because of anesthetic inactivation by the acidity of the abscess around the tooth apex. Sometimes the abscess can be drained, antibiotics prescribed, and the procedure reattempted when inflammation has been mitigated. The tooth can also be unroofed to allow drainage and help relieve pressure.
Our doctors may chose that A root treated tooth may be eased from the occlusion as a measure to prevent tooth fracture prior to the cementation of a crown or similar restoration. Sometimes the dentist performs preliminary treatment of the tooth by removing all of the infected pulp of the tooth and applying a dressing and temporary filling to the tooth. This is called a pulpectomy. Dr. Dela Cruz may also remove just the coronal portion of the dental pulp, which contains 90% of the nerve tissue, and leave intact the pulp in the canals. This procedure, called a "pulpotomy", tends to essentially eliminate all the pain. A pulpotomy may be a relatively definitive treatment for infected primary teeth. The pulpectomy and pulpotomy procedures aim to eliminate pain until the next time you come in when finishing the root canal. Further occurrences of pain could indicate the presence of continuing infection or retention of vital nerve tissue. You may have to take over the counter pain medications.
After removing as much of the internal pulp as possible, the root canal(s) can be temporarily filled with calcium hydroxide paste. This strong base is left in for a week or more to disinfect and reduce inflammation in surrounding tissue. The patient may still complain of pain if the dentist left pulp devitalizer over the canal. Ibuprofen taken orally is commonly used before and/or after these procedures to reduce inflammation.
When the patient returns, a filling may be placed in the tooth and after the dentist is sure all is well a crown procedure is done at a later time. The usual amount of time is two weeks and the average cost is seven hundred to fifteen hundred dollars.