Why would I need an endodontic treatment?
The soft tissue in a tooth is called dental pulp. It consists of nerve fibers, blood and lymphatic vessels and connective tissue. The pulp may become inflamed and infected by bacteria due to a deep-seated cavity, a crack in the tooth, a broken off tooth or a gap between tooth and filling. The tooth may react to cold or heat causing sudden or lasting pain. Nevertheless, the infection could also stay unnoticed until discovered on an x-ray or during a sensitivity test while at your dentist.
If the inflammation is not treated, bacteria might destroy the entire dental pulp and spread into the jaw-bone causing bone-loss, purulent inflamma-tion, weaken the general immune system or trigger diseases in other parts of the body.
The only possibility to permanently keep the in-flamed tooth without risk of disease is through endodontic treatment (from the Greek endo ‘inside’ and odons ‘tooth’), i.e. a root canal treatment. To-day, a root canal treatment will save a tooth which formerly could not have been saved.