so should i? everyone at work seems to think its one of the most horrible experiences ill have in life.

I often wonder if the people who make such protestations have actually had root canal work or have lived a very sheltered life. The initial injection is worse than a normal filling anaesthetic but no worse than getting the tooth pulled. Early intervention is likely to get better outcomes – delaying is more likely to increase risk of infection, absess etc.

I had my first root canal about 15 years ago, totally horrible experience, the private dentist was a total arse and it put me off going to the dentist for a long time which ended up with me having various other issues.

Roll on 15 years the first root canal tooth was removed a few months ago.
I have found a fantastic NHS practice who have been fantastic sorting my teeth out, currently going through a root canal procedure and it’s been totally pain free and the service is actually better than any private practice i’ve been too. Things have really moved on in how they do stuff and also what they have to tell you now, they can’t just get you in the chair and do as they please anymore which was the experience I was used to.

Agree with above. You can’t leave it. Have a root canal first, and then have the tooth out if that fails.

so its not got an abscess or anything like that atm, just a mild ache sometimes.

looks like im going to have to nip it in the bud. If i start streaming like a girl and theres blood everywhere ill video it.

far better to keep the tooth (with root canal) if you can…extraction should be a last resort

I have had this done fairly recently.

My dentist is great.

Only issue I had was the rubber dam thing..I have a bad gag reflex…

No pain during and no pain since.

so its not got an abscess or anything like that atm, just a mild ache sometimes.

Get it sorted. Soon it will become often and then at some really inconvenient moment it will become constant and agonising. It won’t just get better.

I don’t know how easy it is to shop around for dentists? I posted up before about going private. That was mainly due to a really bad NHS dentist. There will be good and bad nhs and private dentists and you chances of problems short and long term are largely determined by the quality of the work.

I’d agree with most of the others; it’s not a pleasant experience you should seek out, but compared to toothache it’s nothing to stress about.

With a good dentist it’s uncomfortable not agonising. I’ve had worse pain when the dentist has cleaned my teeth!

I had it done to a molar which the adjacent wisdom tooth hard started to destroy. I had to do it really as I had 8 teeth taken out as a teenager before the braces sorted them out and I’d already lost another to another wisdom tooth.
It’s really not bad at all, just boring. The drugs they give you are great, better than most of the shit I consumed in my clubbing years!
However, it only took 6 months before it all got infected and had to be pulled out. The infection was VERY painful!

8 done between 35 and 2 years ago. 5 have been crowned of which 2 twice, one onlayed and two just filled (the 35 year old ones). I lost another couple, if they get beyond a year they’re fine IME.

Pfft.

I’m just back from the dental hospital to remove two rogue roots left over from a troublesome extraction (broken crown) that were giving me an infection.

Needles everywhere, strange cracking sounds in your head and feeling stitches dangling on your tongue as your gum is sewn back up. It was fine, and I’m a pussy.

I’ve also been hospitalised with a bodged dental job in my youth; I was an inpatient on morphine for 3 days being monitored for septicaemia.  The operation to resolve was an absolute bloodbath, but you’re just a passenger on a journey and you don’t feel thing!

TL;DR, just get it done. The anticipation is far worse than the actual event…

Usually 🙂

@bearnecessities – yep been there with an impacted wisdom tooth. Took a full dental surgeon an hour to get it out. Said it was one of the most difficult he’d ever done.

Had to drill away a fair amount of jaw in the process and lots of cracking and splitting.

Only had local anaesthetic and wasn’t painful – just very uncomfortable having my mouth held open that long with my cheek and lip pinned back.

Root canal is nothing in comparison 🙂

Your in calderdale aren’t you? I’d recommend fresh smile in brighouse, specialise in nervous patients as long as you let them know.
They pre numb you with gel, then use a thing called a wand which is a machine controlled injection which controls how fast the local anesthetic goes in and also regulates the temperature of the liquid so it makes for a much more comfortable experience.

I had a root treatment there, and they did have to administer an additional traditional injection as I got some discomfort, but they stopped immediately as soon as I started wincing. The second injection I couldn’t feel as I was already numbed up, just not quite enough for the root treatment.

That was a second visit, they stopped the first one as I had pain so they reevaluated where exactly to inject me, apparently the nerves in my jaw weren’t in quite the same locality that they Usualy are.

Would highly recommend, I was a very nervous patient from being mistreated in the past, I’m not any more, going to the dentist now doesn’t bother me any more than taking the car to the garage.. The bill is worse than the treatment lol!

Took most of the rest of the day for the numbness to wear off, but a few beers and plenty of ibrubrofen made sure the only after effects were just very minor soreness.

The bill is worse than the treatment lol!

I’d echo that! I pay £20 a month to be part of a private practice now, but it’s unbelievably chilled and they seem to time it so you’re the only person in the waiting area. I also get 4 cleans a year included.

Sounds pricey, but it’s less than most folk’s phone contract and worth the bonuses – for example when I needed the specialist treatment I’ve had today, I was sent to a private unit.

Didn’t get offered a lollipop though 🙁

Basically, when a root canal procedure is carried out the nerve to the root of the tooth is destroyed. Because nerves have trophic influences on the tissues they supply, they (nerves) nourish and contribute to the blood supply of the surrounding tissues. So, when the nerve is killed the blood supply of these tissues is compromised meaning they become prone to infection. As infection occurs in these dental tissues, the toxins released from the infective agents may cause a variety of medical illnesses such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome etc.

Where are the emojis? I want the rolling eyes one.

Loads of experts here with varying experience. Here’s some advice from a dentist who spends almost all his time doing root filling work in a dental hospital. If it needs doing or extracting then that’s your choice. I would always try and keep a tooth. Leaving it isn’t really an option as it will flare up and cause problems at some point. I couldn’t work without a microscope.

To avoid all of this limit the amount and especially the frequency of sugar you eat. Your teeth can cope with 3-4 lots of sugar per day. Don’t have it less than an hour before you go to bed. Keep your teeth clean. Visit the dentist regularly as they suggest. Unless you’re unlucky enough to suffer some trauma or accidentally crack a tooth you shouldn’t need a root filling. Decay is entirely preventable. Also, according to a book I’m reading, sugar may have many more serious effects than just rotting your teeth. Maybe even more than ‘trophic influences’ of nerves…

My dentist was as evangelical as you about getting a root canal. I had 12 months of repeated treatments that cost me thousands. And excrutiating pain.

I also want rolling eyes.

mine was absolutely fine while being done and immediately after

it failed in 6 months, had to be done again, absolutely fine, Failed again a while later

i was offered an apicoectomy, which sounded hideous, and had less than 50% chance of success, so i eventually had the tooth out.

I think the point that Paul is trying to make is that root canal is a last ditch attempt to save what is basically an already f***ked piece of your body which, most of the time is a situation you can avoid being in with a bit of personal effort and responsibility. If one of your fingers died because it lost it’s blood supply, if someone managed to save it for a period of time rather than amputating it you’d be stoked no? Even if it cost a bit of money? Or maybe you don’t need that finger cos you have another 9? Your choice…..

Most of the time it works well, sometimes it works for a period of time and fails, sometimes it doesn’t work. In reality, any time you keep the tooth after it needs a root canal is a bonus compared to extracting it there and then. Which is your only other option in that situation. Your choice……

Much better / easier / cheaper to do all you can to avoid needing it in the first place.

Also, at the risk of getting drawn into an argument about tropic influences, teeth only get root filled if they are dead already or dying and past the point of recovery. They die because their blood supply has been damaged in some way, either by trauma or the bodies own inflammation reaction. I think our spice girl has an egg before she has a chicken….

I get that ceepers – but mine originated from nothing ‘choice’ related. Impact related. My dentists charged me a fortune (to me). If I had an ‘informed’ choice again – I just wouldnt wish that on my younger self, or indeed anyone else.

That’s completely fair enough, sometimes trauma does for teeth in the healthiest mouths. Most of the time, especially in front teeth, root canal works well and lets you keep the tooth. Sometimes you’re unlucky (as it sounds like you were). I’m pretty sure your dentist(s) tried to act in your best interest and save the tooth for you, no dentist would suggest removing a front tooth without at least attempting to save it unless it was completely borked to start with. With the best will in the world, very few things in life work 100% of the time for life. To go back to my example, some traumatically lost fingers will get reattached successfully, some will get reattached and eventually have to be removed it’s just that in the uk, the government funds finger heroics but not tooth related ones.

I get that ceepers – but mine originated from nothing ‘choice’ related. Impact related. My dentists charged me a fortune (to me). If I had an ‘informed’ choice again – I just wouldnt wish that on my younger self, or indeed anyone else.

Some dentists are literally pirates though, I’m 40 and have been through a few in my time.

Got scared by some dodgy NHS ones in my youth, hence a few years of neglect and a lot of expensive treatment over the last five years or so.

Ended up buying an insurance plan, hated the first private dentist I went to as they were totally unsympathetic.

Found a good one and then maxed out my claim allowance, as it was 50% or or 75% cash back depending on the particular treatments, but only up to a certain amount per year.

Last few treatments I’ve just paid cash as a private patient.

For perspective, the NHS page on root canals suggests that – and I quote –

‘Around 9 out of 10 root-treated teeth survive for 8 to 10 years.’

I don’t know how accurate that figure is and, of course, it means 10% of them don’t last that long. Fwiw I was dead set on an implant tbh, but was persuaded that properly-done, specialist root canal work was a better option. I figured that I could always go for removal and an implant at a later date if necessary.

So far the process has been dull, but painless. The only afters so far has been a very mild ache in the hinge of my jaw on one side, presumably from having my gob wedged open for almost an hour.

Some dentists are literally pirates though,

Did you have your teeth done on Talk Like A Pirate Day?

Sorry if I was nowty last night and thanks to ceepers for further explanation and back up.

The question of success rates is interesting. There are at least a couple of studies (Qualtrough in Manchester and Lumley in Birmingham off the top of my head) that show good success rates but they only looked at whether a tooth had stayed in function or was extracted or had surgery later. Many teeth will survive with some chronic infection but with no or minimal symptoms for years and patients may not even notice there is a problem with their tooth. In one sense that is a success but in another, if there is on-going chronic infection, it’s not a success at all and those sorts of chronic infections are increasingly being linked to other systemic illnesses (rather as CG was suggesting but perhaps not by the mechanism she proposed….). There is therefore a need for monitoring of root filled teeth both with radiographs and clinically to be sure that everything is ok.

The inside of teeth is incredibly complex. Even front teeth, which usually have only one root canal, may have side bits and branches and corners that make it extremely difficult to clean. Back teeth even more so. Anyone who has seen the inside of a back tooth down a microscope will appreciate that to clean it effectively is going to take ages and even then, with the best will in the world may not be successful. It’s fascinating though and when it works is one of the few areas in dentistry where we get healing – most of the time we’re just cutting out the rot and sticking something in it’s place.

There’s quite a lot of work at the moment looking at trying to keep even very damaged nerves alive and the ability to grow new teeth is not that far away. Just need to make sure we grow teeth and not some horrible teratoma type tumour. (Don’t google at mealtimes..)

I’m not an evangelist for root treatment but I am for keeping your teeth because, generally, there’s nothing like the real thing. If you can prevent the teeth getting into that state in the first place (barring accidents, as said above) then do it!

so been for it this afternoon. A couple of injections and an xray later and the chap doesnt want to do it. going to refer me. Guess its the best thing if hes not happy.

Interestingly hes said today “or just leave it” where as last time it was “you need it doing no matter what”

and those sorts of chronic infections are increasingly being linked to other systemic illnesses (rather as CG was suggesting but perhaps not by the mechanism she proposed….). There is therefore a need for monitoring of root filled teeth both with radiographs and clinically to be sure that everything is ok.

Finding this most interesting, as someone who has dental discomfort most days due to rubbish health although RC’s look fine. Do you have any thoughts on 3D cone beam analysis?

Yes indeed. CBCT (3D x-rays) reveal all sorts of things that aren’t visible on plain film. Depending on the symptoms (and really I guess I mean tooth related ones rather than general systemic ones that may or may not be related to root fillings) I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest one if there’s nothing obvious on a plain film. In fact that is an indication for one.

The British Endodontic Society regional conference in Edinburgh a couple of years ago was almost all about systemic effects of chronic infection/inflammation. It seems to have gone full circle from the days of focal infection theory where people had large amounts of their body surgically removed because it was thought to be causing them problems (even things like criminal behaviour) through being totally discounted to now accepting that there probably is an effect. Trouble is with things like heart disease, for example, the effect may be to increase risk by 25% which sounds a lot but is negligible compared with smoking which may be more like 600%. (I may be half remembering those figures but it’s like that). I’ve definitely had patients (and friends) who feel much better, or at least different, after having had chronic infection sorted out, either by extraction or root treatment.

HTH (you can probably google some of the speakers at the BES conference mentioned above. Lots of Scandinavians IIRC and good, proper science)