What Is the Purpose of a Root Canal?

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Part of the video series: Do I Need a Root Canal?

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Summary: How your teeth will benefit from a root canal. Learn why people need root canals in this dental health video from an experienced dentist.

Views: 459 | Tags: tooth, dental, teeth, surgery, dentist, root, oral, canal, surgeon

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About the Expert

Michael Chen Michael Chen is presently teaching courses about implant dentistry to other dentists. They range from introductory to advance courses. Dr. Chen uses implant c... read more

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Video Transcript

What Is the Purpose of a Root Canal?

One of the things is why do we do a root canal? To do a root canal is mainly because the tooth, in the center part of the tooth there are nerves. And the nerves are located in the root of each individual tooth. The main thing is we need to know when we need to do a root canal. And what is a root canal. A root canal is basically a treatment to remove the nerve tissue from the root and clean that area up and seal it so that no bacteria can go back in there and cause an infection. The reason we need a root canal is because the soft tissue or the nerve tissue in the canal have been infected by the bacteria. And what caused the infection? Most times the infection is caused by the bacteria because of decay. Cavities. And a cavity allows the bacteria to break through the tooth structure and get into the nerve tissue. The nerve tissue to the bacteria is like food. They like to go in there and they basically gobble everything up and they break everything down. But when they do that they produce a lot of basically waste product and that is what builds up and that's when we see the swelling or the pus. The irritation that caused the toothache and the discomfort.