Root canals get a lot of bad press.  Even President Obama, in his first State of the Union address, said that the bank bailout was “as popular as a root canal.”  While I’m sure that no one actually looks forward to getting a root canal, they don’t deserve all this negativity. Let’s look at some common myths about root canal therapy to try to separate fact from fiction.

Myth #1:  Root Canal Therapy is Painful

The reality is that most root canal treatments are done because a tooth is already painful.  For many people needing a root canal, eating foods that are hot or cold can send searing pain up and down their face.  The result of a root canal is a pain-free tooth enabling a person to enjoy food again.  In fact, with dental anesthetics, most people do not experience any pain during root canal treatment.

Myth #2:  Having a Root Canal Requires Several Dental Appointments

Most root canals can be completed in one to two appointments.  The number of appointments needed is determined by the amount of infection present and the difficulty of the tooth anatomy.  The dental crown or cap that is needed to put on the tooth after a root canal is necessary, but is not considered a part of the root canal treatment.

Myth #3:  Root Canals Cause Illnesses

In the early 1900’s, Dr. Weston Price reported that if bacteria is trapped in the tooth after a root canal is completed, then diseases such as heart disease, kidney disease, and arthritis may result.  Recent research has not been able to duplicate Dr. Price’s findings.  In fact, there are hundreds of different kinds of bacteria that can be in our mouths at any time.  Even a healthy mouth free of cavities and gum disease has bacteria present! Researchers believe that Dr. Price’s (almost 100 year old) findings may be due to an unsanitary lab and inaccurate research techniques.

Myth #4:  Teeth Should Hurt Before You Have a Root Canal

A tooth may not hurt and still need a root canal.  The nerve in the tooth may be already dead from a past injury.  If this is the case, a person will not feel pain even if the tooth is infected.  In such cases your dentist will diagnose the need for a root canal with x-rays, and hot/cold tests during your dental exam.  If a tooth starts to get darker, or you notice a “pimple” on the gum, see your dental professional right away.  The pimple is a sign of a draining infection, that if not treated can damage the gums of adjacent teeth.

Myth #5:  Root Canals Do Not Last Long

This myth comes from the possibility of a tooth breaking months after root canal therapy.  After a root canal is completed, a crown/cap should be placed on the tooth to protect it from getting brittle.  If a filling is put on the tooth instead, over time the forces of chewing will weaken the tooth causing it to crack or break.  If this occurs, it is not the root canal that has failed, but the improper restoration on the tooth that has failed.

Myth #6:  It is Better to Pull the Tooth Than Get a Root Canal

Dentists want to save teeth, not pull them.  Your real tooth- even one with a root canal and a crown, requires less treatment (and less money) than replacing a pulled tooth with a dental implant or a bridge.  If taken care of properly by daily brushing and flossing, a tooth that has had a root canal can last a life time.

Human teeth have one to four roots depending on the tooth.  Inside each root is a pulp chamber that goes down the whole length of the root.  This pulp chamber is known as the root canal.  Within this root canal, is the nerve of the tooth.  Any trauma or infection to the nerve may result in the need for endodontic surgery or root canal therapy.  An example of a situation that would require a root canal would be deep tooth decay that goes all the way through the tooth to the pulp.  The tooth may become infected (abscessed) resulting in a painful tooth.

How are root canals done?

After your dentist has determined that a tooth needs a root canal by x-rays or dental digital x-rays, hot/cold tests, and/or pulp vitality test, he or she may give you antibiotics if the tooth is infected.  Next, your dentist will give you anesthetic to numb your tooth.  After your tooth is numb, your dentist will do the following:

• Isolate your tooth with a rubber dam. This is done to keep your tooth dry and to protect your other teeth from medicines used to disinfect the inside of the infected tooth.
• A small hole is drilled through the top of the tooth to the pulp chamber to gain access to the nerve.
• Tiny files are used to remove the nerve and infected tissue from the tooth. At this point, another x-ray may be taken to ensure that all of the nerve has been removed.  If it hasn’t, then re-infection and possible tooth loss can occur.
• After the entire nerve has been removed, the tooth is dried and filled with a material called gutta-percha. Gutta-percha seals the inside of the tooth.
• Next, your dentist will remove any decay from the tooth. If the tooth has so much decay that it will not support a crown or a new filling, a post may be placed inside the tooth.  The tooth will then be built up to strengthen it for a crown.  If your root canal was performed by an endodontist, then he will place a temporary filling on the tooth and send you back to your dentist who will most likely recommend a crown for the tooth to protect it from cracking and breaking.

After your appointment, your dentist may recommend a pain reliever to take at home. If you were given antibiotics before the  root canal, you will be told to finish all of the medication. Now you are ready to enjoy a pain free smile courtesy of your dentist and root canal therapy. That is, assuming your dentist is a trusted professional and does not use paper clips for root canals!

Here is a short video of the root canal therapy process:

An endodontist is similar to a general dentist in that they both have graduated from dental school, which is usually four years long.  In addition to dental school, an endodontist must complete two to three years of advanced training to become a specialist in root canal therapy.  Although many general dentists perform root canals, sometimes the procedure may require the expertise of an endodontist.

Unfortunately, the term “root canal” has gotten a bloodcurdling reputation as being a painful procedure, but those days are long gone.  Today, routine root canals are effortlessly performed by endodontists with little to no discomfort to the patient.  In a root canal procedure (otherwise known as endodontic treatment) the diseased nerve, blood vessels, and tissue are removed from inside of the tooth and replaced with restorative material.  A crown is then positioned on top of the tooth to protect and make your tooth strong.  By and large, endodontic treatment will restore the function of your tooth and reclaim your dazzling smile!

For more info about endodontics and root canals, check out this short video clip:

-Katie

1. What is your purpose for wanting to visit the dentist? Did you smoke too many Marlboro lights in high school and now your teeth are a lovely shade of nicotine? Or maybe you wince in pain every time you chew on anything thicker than baby food. The answer will help you determine what type of speciality you’ll want your dentist schooled in.
2. What’s your budget? Do you have dental insurance to help foot the bill? If not, are you willing to give up next year’s vacation in order to afford a doc with the latest Matrix-like technology? Decisions, decisions…
3. When reading reviews of a dentist on a social media site, please please please keep your salt shaker by your side. Review sites possess a few fundamental flaws. These include:

• The reviews are opinions. We all perceive experiences differently.
• There are rumors that businesses pay people to write positive reviews. I’m no Veronica Mars, teenage PI, and I have no proof of this, but it’s definitely conceivable.
• There is the probability that some of the positive reviews are being written by employees of the business while negative reviews may be written by their competitors.
• Small sample size. Users are basing their decisions on possibly one or two reviews when the business is visited by hundreds or thousands of people.

Hopefully answering these questions will give you a bit more focus on what type of dentist you’ll want to look for. For more helpful tips on finding that one-of-a-kind dentist in San Francisco, check our dentist reviews and ratings.

Photo by gerlos

Three beautiful words. Oral Conscious Sedation. Say them aloud with me. Invite them in and get to know them. They will become your new BFF. What exactly is oral conscious sedation? It’s a means of achieving sedation by taking oral medication. You’re not put asleep during the procedure. You’re awake, you can answer questions and respond to commands, but you are pain-free and completely relaxed. Through oral conscious sedation, you can experience a dental visit with little or no pain, and possibly little memory of the event, which lets the dentist do his job in a more efficient and thorough manner. If your dentist doesn’t have to sit there for an hour trying to calm you down or pry open your tense jaw, he’s free to get in there, do the work, and get out.

It may seems simple to you, take a pill and all is well. And for you, that will likely be the scenerio. But you’ll want to know that your dentist has the proper training so you find yourself feeling like Goldilocks, not over-sedated or under-sedated, but just right. Every state’s sedation regulations differ, but most likely there are special classes your dentist will need to attend in order to be certified and legally allowed to administer oral conscious sedation.D.O.C.S or Dental Organization for Conscious Sedation is a well known organization who offer sedation education to dentists. Your dentist needs to be educated in the specific drugs that are available, their side effects and how to monitor your safety and well being while still achieving a sedative effect. There are many different drugs that may be used in oral conscious sedation and your dentist will decide which is most appropriate for you. This is usually based on your health history and level of anxiety.

Are there side effects, you ask? There are always side effects. But most of the side effects from the sedation drugs can actually be beneficial to you. For example, some of the drugs used for conscious sedation have a side effect called “retrograde amnesia”. This means that by the next day you may have very little memory of the dental visit. You don’t have to ask me twice if I’d like to forget the sound of my brain being drilled out or the story of the receptionists genius little toddler who loves to eat dog food. Another side effect you may experience is dry mouth. A dry mouth is beneficial to both you and your dentist. It’s beneficial to your dentist because it prevents him from having to work under waterfall conditions. And it’s beneficial to you because you won’t have to deal with the dental hygienist constantly vacuuming out your muzzle with that unnecessarily loud suction machine. There’s nothing like a dry mouth on a calm, relaxed person to get a dental procedure completed in record time with little or no complications. You should always ask your dentist (or any doctor) about all possible side effects and what you can expect from the specific drugs the dentist is going to administer. Surprises are fun, but not when they involve your health.

When you want to find a dentist, make sure you ask if they offer oral conscious sedation. It’s time we put our fears of the Big Bad Wolf to rest and get in there and take care of our teeth, before they have their own resting place in a glass of water next to the bed.

For more information on a pain-free dental visit, read about the Waterlase system!

Before hitting the yellow pages or searching for a San Francisco dentist online there are a few criteria you should be wary of.

Reputation

All dentists, as with any profession, were not created equal but you will be glad to know that the general level of technical capability of San Francisco dentists is quite high for the most part. Searching for dentist reviews online can help as can word of mouth from a friend but remember that it can be difficult for a layman to tell the difference between good, bad and average. Professional referral is a slightly better gauge as a dentist will know a good, bad or average dentist.

Facilities

Did you know there are tools to get rid of or reduce that gagging feeling, or a machine that can build a dental implant immediately on site removing the need for multiple visits or that there is a shot that halves the time you have that numb feeling after you visit? Well, there are and not all San Francisco dentists have all. Some people have such levels of fear when visiting the dentist that full or partial sedation is a definite need – not all San Francisco dentists do this, but some do. If you have an idea of what work you will be doing, ask about the appropriate equipment the dentist will be using or ask him what is available to combat any concerns you might be harboring.

Cost

Depending on the procedure the cost of a visit to the dentist in San Francisco can become somewhat expensive. Factors that determine cost will be primarily reputation or experience, equipment (he has to pay for the machines some way), location (San Francisco rent is not cheap) and of course the procedure being delivered.

Insurance

For most, dental insurance is quite basic so if you are getting more than a check-up or a filling, do not bank on insurance protecting your wallet. I am including this here so sticker shock is somewhat reduced if you are seeking something like cosmetic dentistry.

Convenience

In some cases, you may be required to make multiple visits in a short amount of time so thinking with location, parking and even traffic may be an important factor. What is the point of driving to a cheap part of San Francisco (if there is one) to save a couple of hundred dollars when the time to get off work, drive and park negates that saving.

So there you go. Don’t worry, your odds are good. We at Doctorbase would like to humbly offer our listings of quality dentists in San Francisco as they have been checked for reviews and facilities with many having peer reviews too. They wouldn’t be on our listings if they had a bunch of bad reviews. If you choose not to, you obviously know how to use Google – you found us – so good luck.

E-mail the author with a question, seriously I don’t mind, it’s what i’m here for. If I don’t know the answer, I know a lot of dentists, I’ll get you an answer.

A root canal is the space within the root of a tooth. It is part of a naturally occurring space within a tooth that consists of the pulp chamber (within the coronal part of the tooth), the main canal(s), and more intricate anatomical branches that may connect the root canals to each other or to the surface of the root. The smaller branches are most frequently found near the root end (apex) but may be encountered anywhere along the root length. There may be one or two main canals within each root. Some teeth have more variable internal anatomy than others. This space is filled with a highly vascularized, loose connective tissue, the dental pulp. The dental pulp is the tissue which forms the dentin portion of the tooth. The formation of secondary teeth (adult teeth) is completed by 1-2 years after eruption into the mouth. Once the tooth has reached its final size and shape, the dental pulp’s original function ceases for all practical purposes. It takes on a secondary role as a sensory organ.

Root canal is also a colloquial term for a dental operation, endodontic therapy, wherein the pulp is cleaned out, the space disinfected and then filled.

You can find an endodontist in your area.