What does root canal means?

Question

how is the process of that?

Answer 1

means that the nerve has to drilled out and removed to cap or fill the tooth so it Will not be sensitive.
The process is drilling by a skilled dentist constantly checking his work to be sure that nerve is completely gone. After a few weeks of antibiotics in the drilled cavity then it is filled or capped to prevent infection.

Answer 2

When a tooth's pulp or nerve is damaged due to bacteria reaching it or trauma it usually requires the tooth undergo a root canal therapy to save it or an extraction. So in order to save the tooth a root canal therapy is preformed.

The tooth is opened exposing the "chambers or canals" that retain the "pulp or nerve" of a tooth, some have 1 while others have 3 or 4 canals. This pulp or nerve carries all the required nutrients that maintain the vitality of the tooth. Once the chambers are opened a set of small files are used to remove the nerve then clean and enlarge the walls of each of the canals. Then there is a material called gutta percha that is cemented into place to seal the canals as the nerve once did only now there is no supply of nutrients going to the tooth. This makes the tooth become dried out and brittle which causes it to fracture or break much more easily. So that is why a crown is recommended after a few weeks, the crown adds strength to the body of the tooth or outer portion, by encompassing it with the porcelain fused to metal crown.

Hope I've been of some help in answering this question today, and if you plan to have a RCT done there is no need to worry. They do not hurt, it's the patient that comes in with a swollen, abscessed tooth that been hurting them for days that say root canal therapy hurts. It's the pain they experienced that “caused the root canal,” not the actual procedure. Good luck!

As for your question: A root canal means or refers to a necessary therapy to the canals of a tooth that removes the pulp or nerve that is the vital blood supply that maintains the tooth’s integrity by carrying the life sustaining nutrients. Then to restore the tooth to full function a filling is placed into each canal and sealed with a build up material used to replace the missing tooth structure removed to reach the canals and a crown is placed to give the tooth added stability.

Additional information: Biocompatible Dentistry has been around for many years with some dentist as believers in the techniques used while other dentist are completely against their beliefs. It's is up to the patient as to which method of dentistry they prefer to use. I was associated with biocompatible dentistry years ago and have seen many patients switch to this type of dentistry or way of thinking that their amalgam fillings, root canals, and crowns were poisoning them. These same patients returned to the more traditional dental technology and treatment after realizing it wasn't changing any health problems they had and it was a more expensive means of dentistry. The choice is up to the patient.

Answer 3

A root canal is when the dentist basically gets rid of all of the tooth but the root and puts a cap over the root. I have 2 and they don't hurt. They look and feel like real teeth. It takes about 5 or so visits to complete one. And it is expensive.

Answer 4

A pulp-filled channel in a root of a tooth.

Answer 5

It means to kill the tooth by removing 1/3 of the roots of the tooth bby drilling into canals. the other 2/3 are in the tooth itself, in the dentin. there are 3 miles of roots (tubules) and they cannot be sterilized. so, they decay and create bacteria which eats away the jawbone over time.

Research has demonstrated that 100% of all root canals result in residual infection due to the imperfect seal that allows bacteria to penetrate. The toxins given off by these bacteria are more toxic than mercury. These toxins can cause systemic diseases of the heart, kidney, uterus, and nervous and endocrine systems. Edward Arana, D.D.S. http://www.curezone.com/dental/
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"Root canals are a zillion times worse than mercury fillings" ~Hal Huggins
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.... Cavitations or NICO's occur when bone is deprived of its blood supply and dies. When the bone dies a hole in the bone develops, literally a cavity and into this hole migrate anaerobic bacteria. These bacteria live without oxygen, indeed oxygen is poisonous to them [this is why many people never feel pain where pulled teeth were or in their root canals, not the case with aerobic bacteria in an abcessed tooth, which utilize oxygen to live and create pain and/or pus]. Bacteria organise themselves into colonies which can be visualised as cities. Cities require food to come in (you the patient supply the food!) and generate waste material. The waste material made by these bacteria is toxic in the extreme and in cavitations this toxic material is constantly being released into the body. If Mustard Gas, used in WW1, is taken as a yard stick, then most of the bacterial waste products are 10 or more times as toxic than Mustard Gas.

Cavitations can occur in any bone in the body usually after infection or trauma of some sort. Naturally dental extraction can easily be the cause of a cavitation, this is especially true of wisdom teeth extractions. Most extractions are due to infection, they involve stretching and sometimes fracture of the bone all predisposing factors for cavitation formation. Added to this is the fact that if the membrane that holds the tooth in place, the periodontal membrane, is not removed at the same time as the tooth comes out, this to leads to cavitation formation. It is not common for the dentist removing the tooth to also remove the membrane at the same time, an unfortunate fact. ....

If the nerve inside a tooth has died then the tooth may need a Root...[canal]. A root...[canal] is simply material put into a tooth where the nerve used to be. Traditionally a rubber like substance called Gutta Percha is used. This can contain mercury. Other materials include Formaldehyde, Cadmium, Steroids or even concentrated Sulphuric Acid. The problem with root canals is both the toxic nature of the materials used and the fact that they do not fill fully the open spaces inside the tooth. Each tooth contained miles, and I mean miles, of little canals branching off the main canal. The main canal can be filled but traditional root filling materials cannot fill the tiny lateral canals [see illustration below]. It is inside these lateral canals that anaerobic bacteria live and multiply. They too have waste products and it is the release of these toxic waste products, as in cavitations, that cause the problems.
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BIOLOGIC DENTISTRY

HOW ROOT CANALS GENERATE TOXINS

Dr. Weston Price spent 35 years...in research. [For 14 years,] he was the...Director of Research for the Amercian Dental Association.... He studied diseases of the heart, kidney, uterus, nervous system and endocrine system resulting from toxins seeping out of root canal filled teeth. He became aware that a certain percentage of people are sensitive to toxins that are manufactured within these dead teeth. The treatments he researched are basically the same...that are [the] foundation of today's root canal work. Research convinced Dr. Price of many truths that we still have a hard time...[understanding], even today. We remain bogged down in "that's the way we've always done it" thinking. We have been too habitual to adopt this sense of new "truth". His extensive research covered 24 procedures.... In...[his]...[day], before extensive use of x-ray, the infection in the root canal went unnoticed or disguised itself as bone absorption. Local comfort of a treated tooth was...a sign of success.... Only...pus flowing from a tooth was...a sign of failure. However, Dr. Weston Price looked beyond the obvious.

WHAT DID PRICE FIND IN HIS RESEARCH THAT CONVINCED HIM THAT PEOPLE COULD NOT TOLERATE ROOT CANALS?

...When root filled teeth were removed from people suffering from kidney and heart disease, most improved. ...he inserted the root filled tooth under the skin of a rabbit. ...they have a similar immune system to humans. Dr. Price established that a normal tooth can be inserted...for a year with practically no reaction. A thin film formed over it, but microscopically there were no rejection cells present. Rabbits died within 48 hours when a root filled tooth was implanted.... Each rabbit...would die of the same exact disease as its human donor. Each time a tooth or fragment of a tooth was passed from one rabbit to another, the death of the human donor was duplicated. In experimental lab cases, Dr. price transferred the fragment from 30 to 100 rabbits in succession. If a small fragment was used, the rabbit would lose over 20% of its body weight within two weeks. Even so, Dr. price's research was mostly ignored and dentists continued to use root canal procedures to save human teeth. Dr. Percy R. Howe was the first to publish a paper in the Journal of National Association for Dentists rejecting Price's findings. Howe injected large amounts of bacteria (streptococcus) into rabbits and found no adverse reaction. This 1920 publication is still used as proof that root filled teeth are not harmful to humans. In searching for...the difference between Howe's finding and his own, Dr. Price investigated the methods of sterilization of root canals.... His findings proved that teeth retained their sterility for only about two days after the roots were filled.

WHERE WERE THE BACTERIA HIDING?

A tooth contains enamel, dentin and a central pulp chamber. The central pulp chamber can be sterilized to a reasonable degree by removing its contents of nerves, arteries, and veins and flushing it with 27 chemicals. The dentin, however, is composed of thousands of tiny "dentin tubules" that are unreachable by this flushing procedure. Although microscopic in size, these tubules are quite adequate to house billions of bacteria. If one were to take a front tooth and arrange the dentin tubules end to end, they would...[measure] three miles. The tubules are wide enough to accomodate 8 streptococci abreast. They are of the streptococcus Viridians family and are normal inhabitants of the mouth. When a tooth becomes decay prone, they invade the tooth and start killing tooth tissue. When they reach the pulp chamber, they invade not only the pulp tissue, but also the dentin tubules. When a dentist cleans out the pulp chamber, he removes all the bacteria in the chamber, seals the tooth, and that's when a new action begins.... [This] points out Howe's misinterpretation! In an "anaerobic" condition, or one that contains no oxygen, these streptococci mutate, undergoing a slight change in...body form and metabolism to adapt to this new environment. Now, instead of producing slightly offensive waste products, these transformed bacteria produce a potent...TOXIN. Our immune system...cannot get into the tiny holes in the outside of the root to destroy the bacteria. Toxins can seep out. Fluids containing nutrients can seep into the tooth, so the bacteria continue to thrive in confinement. If the body launches a big fight against the toxins, pus forms around the tooth. Conventional wisdom says that pus is bad for the patient and dentists give antibiotics until it's gone. Price found the pus to be nearly sterile, although socially disagreeable. Its presence was the sign of successful quarantining [of] the toxins from the tooth....Another disturbing situation uncovered by Dr. Price was that x-rays frequently miss abscesses found on the front or back of a tooth. About 30% of teeth have extra canals which may exit anywhere from half way down the tooth to all the way down at the tip, like they are supposed to. They can exit on the front, back, or side of the tooth. Those "other" canals that abscess are ones that are apt to be missed on the x-ray.

Q. WHAT ABOUT ROOT-FILLED TEETH THAT DO NOT FORM PUS OR GIVE PAIN?

If the body's immune system is compromised, then very little action is initiated around the root filled tooth. Certain enzymes may escape which estimulate the bone to form what is termed "condensing osteitis" around the tooth. On x-ray films this will appear as a white line and is considered to reflect excellent healing. This tooth gives no trouble locally as far as pain and pus..., but the toxins that seep out get into the body's circulation, and with little immune system interference, seek a specific organ to attack. Dr. Price named this "tissue localization". Price demonstrated this by transferring sections of root filled teeth, with animals generating the same disease with each transfer.

Q. WHAT IS THE FACTOR THAT DETERMINES WHO IS THE MOST SUSCEPTIBLE TO PROBLEMS FROM ROOT CANALS?

Dr. Price recorded 140,000 determinations in 1200 patients to come up with his answer.... Bottom line, it is hereditary. If your biological inheritance for two generations, including brothers and sisters of your grandparents, were resistant to degenerative diseases, then you are not apt to launch an immune response against a root canal. On the other hand, if there was a high frequency of heart, kidney, diabetes and reproductive disorders,...you're more apt to be susceptible.

Q. SOMETIMES A PERSON OF HEALTHY GENETIC STOCK CAN DEVELOP DISEASES AS A RESULT OF REACTIONS TO MOST ROOT-FILLED TEETH. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?

...the abuse of alcohal, drugs and caffeine stress our system. Dr Price found there were other stresses.... Exposure tend[s] to push people over their threshold and allow the root canal[ed] tooth to become a problem. The challenge could exceed the person's resistance. The two greatest stresses...were pregnancy and influenza (flu). [Price found,] under the influence of either of these conditions, the toxins from root-filled teeth were much more apt to produce disease at the person's specific susceptible site. Other stresses were grief, anxiety, chilling, severe hunger and acute chronic infection.

Q. IF YOU HAVE A ROOT CANAL AND WANT IT REMOVED, DO YOU JUST PULL THE TOOTH?

NO. This may lead to more problems. ...the attachment from the tooth to the bone, called the periodontal ligament, must be removed with a dental burr.... This irritates the old bone and stimulates it to form new bone. ...studies at the University of Colorado looked at the biopsies of bone under removed root-filled teeth. Lymphocytes of auto immune disease were embedded at least a millimeter into the bone, sometimes more. All this must be removed if good bone healing is to be achieved. Dr. Price's research, published in many peer reviewed journals (i.e.: J.A.M.A.., J.A.D.A.O), has never been refuted.

The aim of Root Canal Therapy is to save a tooth which has become infected or dead, in an attempt to make it functional and pain free.

After scraping out the inside of the tooth the dentist will attempt to disinfect the tooth and the canals to eliminate any source of infection. The canal is then filled with a combination of cement and Gutta Percha in an attempt to completely occlude these canals. This is supposedly to prevent any microorganisms from entering the tooth either through the crown or the root.

If you consider pain control, mechanical function and aesthetics to be the limit of good dental treatment, then you will have "SAVED" the tooth.

If systemic effects are included in your concept of dentistry, than all that has happened, is that you have kept dead, infected tissue, buried in the bone, within a couple of inches from your brain.

For some...reason we are all conditioned to think that teeth are not a part of the body, but that they are inert calcified material, and that they are sort of dead anyway. Dentistry is the only one of all the medical & para-medical professions that thinks it is a good idea to keep dead, gangrenous tissue in the body.

One eminent Endodontist says:

It is wrong to speak of (Root Canal Therapy) as a dead tooth; it is more correct to describe such a tooth as non-vital or, better, pulpless. Even though the central blood supply to the tooth has been lost, the tooth itself still retains its connection to the body via the periodontal membrane and the cementum.

The Oxford dictionary defines non-vital as Fatal To Life. It defines Dead as No longer Alive. It is like saying that even though the blood supply to your leg may be completely cut off, it would be wrong to suggest that the leg is dead, because it is still connected to your body by your hip joint.