Saving Teeth Others Said Couldn’t Be Saved

After local anaesthesia, there will be no discomfort. However, if you continue to feel unbearable pain we will either provide more anaesthesia or discontinue the procedure.

The dental pulp can undergo death without pain. Such teeth, if they require a filling, cannot be treated unless a root canal is done. It is like closing a lid on a steaming pressure cooker, it will cause immense pain if the tooth is not treated by a root canal.

Root canal failures usually happen when a procedure is performed without proper isolation and magnification. Also, if the operator does not have enough training and proper equipment, mistakes can happen that result in failure. Your dentist is a specialist in root canals with more than two decades of experience and uses the latest techniques.

If the dental pulp is either dead, or if it gets exposed during removal of decay, a root canal is indicated. Although in young individuals, under certain conditions, a procedure called vital pulp therapy can be performed for exposure of the dental pulp.

Decay is a combination of four factors, bacteria that consume carbohydrates, on a tooth surface, for a sufficient amount of time. Decay is a slow process and takes up to four years to show as a large cavity. It is possible you gave up sugar a year ago but the decay had already started. Carbohydrates are also present in modern diet without us knowing, and frequency of consumption is more damaging than a large quantity at one time.

The tooth can be saved as long as there is enough tooth structure and I can reach the full length of all root canals. The second point is especially important. The main cause of failure is short filling of the root canal by the first treating dentist, who may block the canal in such a way that it cannot be opened to full length.

It takes more visits to complete the procedure, more specialised equipment is needed to treat the tooth, and more materials are used compared with a conventional root canal procedure.

There are conditions that make an implant a relative contraindication. Uncontrolled diabetes makes the chances of failure extremely high. Gum disease loosens natural teeth, if it has loosened yours, imagine how quickly it will fail an implant if we do not treat the gum disease first. And with osteoporosis, the medication taken stops bone turnover, and the success of an implant depends on new bone forming around it.

Ideally it takes three months for a dental implant to heal. During these three months the bone forms around the implant and anchors it. After this the implant is ready for impression and fixing a tooth. Initial healing takes two weeks, no brushing or eating from that side during that time.

Ideally, a person needs one implant for each missing tooth. However, exceptions can be made on a case-to-case basis.

It generally takes around a year.

It is more pressure than pain. On a scale of one to ten, it should be about a two, a simple Panadol helps.

At the end of treatment you are given a retainer, which you wear for around nine months, that is the time the bone takes to form and consolidate around the teeth in their new position.

Braces are low-maintenance and the fastest way to reach your orthodontic goal. Aligners are for patients who don’t want visible braces, but they work for simple cases only, complex cases involving tooth extraction will not respond well to aligner treatment.