Root Canal treatment

If you are experiencing tooth pain, we can help.

Root canal therapy focuses on treating injured or diseased pulp of the tooth. At the center of your tooth is pulp. Pulp is a collection of blood vessels that helps to build the surrounding tooth. Infection of the pulp can be caused by trauma to the tooth, deep decay, cracks and chips, or repeated dental procedures.

Symptoms of the infection can be identified as visible injury or swelling, sensitivity to temperature or pain in the tooth and gums.

This treatment can save your natural teeth and prevent the need of dental implants or bridges.

Root canal procedure

If you experience any symptoms such as visible injury or swelling, sensitivity to temperature or pain in the tooth and gums, your dentist will most likely recommend non-surgical root canal treatment to eliminate diseased or injured pulp.

In root canal therapy, Dr. Gerges removes the injured or diseased pulp and then thoroughly cleans and seals the root canal system. This therapy usually involves local anesthesia and may be completed in one or more visits depending on the treatment required. Success for this type of treatment occurs in about 90% of cases.

If your tooth is not amenable to endodontic treatment or the chance of success is unfavorable, Dr. Gerges will inform you at the time of consultation or when a complication becomes evident during or after treatment.

Dr. Gerges use a local anesthesia to eliminate discomfort. You will be able to drive home after your treatment, and you probably will be comfortable returning to your normal routine soon after treatment.

Endodontic Retreatment

With the appropriate care, your teeth that have had endodontic treatment will last as long as other natural teeth. Yet, a tooth that has received treatment may fail to heal or pain may continue to exist. Sometimes, the pain may occur months or years after treatment. If so, endodontic retreatment may be needed.

Improper healing might be caused by:

• Curved or narrow canals were not treated during the initial treatment.
• Complicated canals went undetected during the initial treatment.
• The crown or restoration was not placed within the appropriate amount of time following the procedure.
• The crown or restoration did not prevent saliva from contaminating the inside of the tooth.

In some instances, new problems can influence a tooth that was successfully treated:

• New decay can expose a root canal filling material, which will cause infection.
• A cracked or loose filling or crown may expose the tooth to new infection.

Once retreatment has been selected as a solution to your problem, Dr. Gerges will reopen your tooth to gain access to the root canal filling material. This restorative material will be removed to enable access to the root canal. Dr. Gerges will now clean your canals and carefully examine the inside of the problematic tooth. Once cleaned, the doctors will fill and seal the canals and place a temporary filling in the tooth.

At this point, you will need to return to your restorative dentist as soon as possible in order to have a new crown or restoration placed on the tooth to restore full functionality.

Surgical Root Canal Treatment (Apicoectomy)

Many times a root canal is all that is needed to save teeth with injured pulp from extraction. Occasionally, non-surgical procedure is not sufficient to heal the tooth apicoectomy surgery is recommended.

Endodontic surgery can be used to locate fractures or hidden canals that do not appear on digital radiographs but still manifest pain in the tooth. Damaged root surfaces or the surrounding bone may also be treated with this procedure. The most common surgery used to save damaged teeth is an apicoectomy or root-end resection.

An incision is made in the gum tissue to expose the bone and surrounding inflamed tissue. The damaged tissue is removed along with the end of the root tip. A root-end filling is placed to prevent reinfection of the root and the gum is sutured. The bone naturally heals around the root over a period of months restoring full function.

Advanced Technology

Cone Beam CT

Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) is the most modern and advanced high resolution radiographic technology available today.

Cone Beam 3D imaging provides a large volume of information and subtle details that simply cannot be obtained by any two dimensional X-ray, whether intraoral or panoramic. 3D scan will allow us to examine the region of interest at a high resolution from many different perspectives. With the help of different radiographic tools, we can examine roots and canals of the tooth, rule out lesions and tumors, as well as assess damage when trauma occurs.

Digital X-Rays:

Digital X-rays offer more precision. In addition, it releases only minimum amounts of radiation. Nothing is more important to us than your comfort and safety!

Surgical Operating Microscopes

The introduction of the surgical microscope has revolutionized the field of Endodontic Microsurgery. This advanced and important tool assists Dr. Gerges by employing both high level magnification and fiber optic illumination

Injuries in children

An injured immature tooth may need one of the following procedures to improve the chances of saving the tooth:

Apexogenesis

This procedure encourages the root to continue development as the pulp is healed. Pulp tissue is covered with medication to encourage growth. The apex of the root will continue to close as the child gets older. In turn, the walls of the root canal will thicken. If the pulp heals, no additional treatment will be necessary. The more mature the root becomes, the better the chance to save the tooth.

Apexification

In this case, the unhealthy pulp is removed. The doctors place medication into the root to help a hard tissue form near the root tip. This hardened tissue provides a barrier for the root canal filling. At this point, the root canal walls will not continue to develop, making the tooth susceptible to fractures. So it is important to have the tooth properly restored by your dentist.

Regenerative Endodontics

Regenerative endodontics uses the concept of tissue engineering to restore the root canals to a healthy state, resulting in lesion healing, continued root development, increased thickness in the dentinal walls and apical closure.

Regeneration of a functional pulp-dentin complex has a promising outcome to retain the natural dentition, the ultimate goal of endodontic treatment.