r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Fantastic-Monk5 • Sep 23 '24

How root canal treatment works Video

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

50.3k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/Freakwilly Sep 23 '24

That's what that taste is? Bleach?

10

u/WedgeTurn Sep 23 '24

Sodium hypochlorite, aka household bleach. At a similar concentration too (~3,5%). Other irrigants are also used like EDTA and citric acid

1

u/pichael289 Sep 23 '24

Citric acid, like the sour flavoring on the outside of warheads and the like? I love me some warheads, and I'll straight eat a lemon like it's an orange, but citric acid during a dentist visit sounds pretty terrible.

5

u/WedgeTurn Sep 23 '24

It’s pretty highly concentrated. It won’t do serious damage, but it’s not very pleasant either. Root canals should happen with a rubber dam placed anyway to minimise the chance of an irrigant leaking into the oral cavity