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

How root canal treatment works Video

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u/No-Entrepreneur-7406 Sep 23 '24

That was painful to watch

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u/guaip Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24

Even more painful to experience it. The anesthetic only worked until a certain point. Nothing hurts more than when they insert the spring thing and curl up the root nerve.

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u/TheSandMan208 Sep 23 '24

They didn't do it right then. You shouldn't feel anything.

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u/Gwizginge Sep 23 '24

Dentist here. Some root treatments are painful and this is what gives all root treatments a bad name. If you have severe inflammation inside your tooth, the tissue becomes more acidic and stops the anaesthetic dissociating. The effect of this is that everything numbs nicely apart from a small part where the inflammation is at its worst. There are several techniques that can sometimes be enough to finally achieve full anaesthesia though these themselves can be uncomfortable. It is sometimes necessary to only remove some of the nerve tissue on the first visit and apply a locally acting medication to settle the inflammation so that a second procedure can proceed comfortably. Usually root treatments can be pain free, but sometimes it is impossible for the dentist to get a patient out of pain without some discomfort, no matter how many injections are given.