What To Expect After Root Canal Therapy

During a root canal procedure performed by a dentist in Brandon, you won’t experience any pain. Before the procedure begins, your dentist will completely numb the area being worked on. After the procedure is complete and the numbness wears off, though, you may experience some pain and discomfort. Your jaw or face muscles may also be sore. That’s to be expected considering you’d had your mouth open for longer than usual while your dentist got rid of the infection in your tooth.

The pain you do experience after a root canal can be treated effectively with over-the-counter pain medications. If you have any allergies relating to pain medication or prior negative experiences with pain control, be sure to discuss those issues with your dentist while developing your treatment plan. 

After your tooth has been cleared of infection, your dentist will seal the tooth to protect it from re-infection. Even though the tooth is now infection-free, it will be somewhat vulnerable to injury or damage after root canal. For this reason, your dentist will provide you with a dental crown to completely cover the treated tooth to provide structural support and strength to allow full dental function going forward. Until the crown is placed, you should avoid biting and chewing directly on your treated tooth. 

How to keep your mouth clean after a root canal

After undergoing root canal therapy near you, can resume brushing and flossing as you normally would immediately. You may want to wait until the numbness in your mouth has worn off so you’ll have full sensation around your tooth, and you should be sure to be gentle and careful in the area of your root canal.

Going forward, diligent daily hygiene will be your best defence against the need to undergo a future root canal. Brushing two to three times daily, flossing daily, seeing your dentist twice a year, having your teeth cleaned annually and receiving all recommended dental treatment will help to prevent re-infections in your treated tooth and the development of any other infections too. If daily dental hygiene was not a priority before your root canal, now is the perfect time to make it a bigger focus of your daily routines. Painless and effective as modern root canal therapy in Brandon is, no one wants to have to go through it more than once. 

Potential complications to be aware of 

Root canal therapy has an enviable record of success. Root canals succeed 95% of the time. In most cases, patients who undergo root canal therapy near you return to their normal daily routines the very next day. There are, though, potential complications that you should be aware of.

Not all teeth are identical. Some have more roots than others, and some of those roots go undetected during treatment planning and even during the procedure. If an infected root is not detected and treated, you may continue to experience symptoms of an infection in that root. Further root canal therapy may be necessary to eliminate that infection as well. 

Your dentist will use gutta-percha to seal your tooth after your root canal procedure. With the passage of time, that sealant can sometimes break down and allow bacteria to penetrate into your tooth. That increases the risk of re-infection. The best way to minimize that risk is to attend regular checkups with your dentist, during which the dentist will carefully inspect every tooth — including the tooth that underwent root canal — to ensure the seal (and any crown) are intact.

Every dentist near you provides patients with detailed instructions about how to care for their mouth and teeth after undergoing a root canal. Their goal is the same as yours — that you recover as quickly and completely as possible.