What is a "root canal"?

What is a "root canal"?

Ronald Rosenblatt, DDS (General and Cosmetic Dentistry) gives expert video advice on: Are root canals painful?; Will a root canal permanently save my tooth? and more...

A root canal is a treatment you recieve either by a specialist called an endondontist, or your dentist. A root canal enables you to keep a tooth that has an infection which has gone into the nerve of the tooth. The infection becomes so bad in the nerve, that the nerve is not going to be able to recover. Therefore what is done in a root canal, is that all the nerve tissue is removed from the canal, the area is sterilized and then a filling material is placed and packed into this nerve canal so that no tissue can grow back into the area. After the root canal is done, the tooth can be restored to the function to give you many more years of tooth function.