Root Canal Preparation
Description
This short video shows the main things that happen during a root canal preparation procedure. Firstly the tooth is isolated using a rubber dam (also known as dental dam). Then all the decay and old fillings are removed. This ensures there are no sneaky bacteria hiding in there. The root canal, (which is the inside of the tooth where the nerve lived) is then cleaned with a series of reamers (long metal files) and irrigants to help disinfect and lubricate the canals. Once the very tip of the canals have been verified and cleaned, the area is dried, medicine is placed inside and the tooth is sealed back up again. The final filling of the root canal happens at the next appointment, once the mediations have had a chance to seep into all the little nooks and crannies of the canal.
Transcript
What you are going to see in this video, is how the procedure of a root canal goes. Root canal is a very common procedure that we do when the nerve inside a tooth has died, and we want to keep the tooth.
Intro
So in order to keep the tooth once the tooth has died, we need to remove that nerve tissue and that is the procedure that you are going to see today. We isolate the tooth with what you can see here... it's called a rubber dam. This makes sure the area that we are working on is nice and clean. We don't want any bugs from your saliva to get inside your tooth, we want to try to sterilise the area inside the tooth and kill the bugs and so we use this to stop saliva and things from your tooth going into the tooth and we also use it to protect the rest of your mouth from the medicines and the irrigations and all the little instruments that we are using to clean your tooth.
You can see that we are using some reemers here.. they are long skinny files and that helps to clean out all the bugs. The different colours correspond to different sized reemers.
So the times your tooth might benefit from getting a root canal are when it is very sore. When it's really sore that can be because the nerve inside the tooth is actually in the process of dying and it's really really inflamed. So having the nerve taken out with the root canal can give you lots of relief. Other times that your tooth may benefit from a root canal is if it's sore for you to chew or bite on.. if you have swelling right up in the top of the gum, if there is puss draining out from a pimple. This can also happen if the tooth has already had a root canal.. You can get reinfected again if the filling at the top sealing it off has started to leak or bugs have somehow found their way back inside the tooth... or if you have got pain that wakes yo up from your sleep or if you have pain and pain killers don't help.
you can see the last thing I'm doing here is just putting in another filling. It's really important that when you have the root canal treatment you have a really solid seal so that no more bugs can get back in. The last stage of the root canal is to fill it up