![]() Oral pain specialist Keith Yount, DDS, says the procedure is just one of many new strategies now being tried to simplify the treatment of diseased teeth. "Most of my patients don't see that as a very big downside." Besides, the dentist will likely find out the reason for the re-infection after the root canal. It can be a small X-ray film placed in the mouth or a big X-ray machine (CBCT Cone Beam Computed Tomography) to see more detail in a 3-dimensional view. "When this fails patients usually end up having a root canal, which they would have had anyway," Teitelbaum says. An X-ray will be the most useful tool here. Teitelbaum says he has done around 200 direct pulp caps using the newer sealant, with a success rate of 92%. "It hardens to form a hermetic seal that coats the nerve as well as the tooth."Īlthough the procedure, known as direct pulp capping, has been around for many decades, the use of traditional adhesives resulted in long-term failure rates as high as 80%. ![]() During a root canal, the infected pulp is removed from the tooth and the inside of the. If infection of the pulp is left untreated it can cause inflammation and serious pain. This can be caused by decay, a chip or crack in the tooth, or an old or poorly placed crown. "We now have bonding technology that allows us to seal over the nerve using the same liquid plastic that contact lenses are made of," he tells WebMD. Root canals are necessary when the pulp inside your tooth becomes infected. To do this, the dentist first inserts the files into the canals and takes an X-ray, by which the root canal length is determined. The main step in the treatment of root canals is to determine their length. Instead of hollowing out the tooth and removing the pulp containing the nerves as is done in a root canal, the exposed nerve area is cleaned thoroughly and sealed. Treatment with files is performed along the entire length of the root canal to the apex of the root, but not beyond the apex. But root canals can be avoided, Teitelbaum says, in cases where the nerves are not yet infected. The bacteria cause an infection, which eventually kills the nerves. Root canals are performed when bacteria, introduced through a cavity or crack, compromise the nerves located inside the tooth. Teitelbaum spoke Friday at the annual meeting of the Academy of General Dentistry held here. Teitelbaum tells WebMD that he believes 80% of people who need root canals are candidates for the alternative procedure but almost none are getting it, partly because few dentists know about it and partly because the failure rate with an earlier generation sealant was very high. The procedure takes just one visit to the dentist and is much less expensive than a traditional root canal, but it is also controversial and not used as much as it should be, says New York dentist Michael Teitelbaum. One such technique involves avoiding the root canal altogether by sealing the exposed nerve with newly developed adhesives. Painless root canal may sound like an oxymoron, but new techniques are making it a reality for many dental patients.
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