“When a dental nerve problem occurs a root filling is often the treatment modality of choice rather than a tooth extraction. Root fillings are difficult for general dentists to carry out without specialist equipment such as a clinic microscope.

Our Liverpool dental clinic accepts patient referrals for root fillings and we aim to make this procedure as pain-free as possible enabling you to keep an intact smile with comfortable and strong teeth”

Dental nerve disease

Our adult teeth start to erupt around age 6 years. By the age of 12 years two thirds of children have suffered a dental injury, especially boisterous boys! Over a lifetime teeth are subjected to tooth decay, fillings and repeat dental procedures.  This dental trauma adds up and damages the health of the dental nerve within our teeth.

It is hardly surprising that eventually the accumulation of damage causes dental nerves to die. This causes toothache, bacteria move in and cause a dental abscess.

Rather than remove infected teeth patients can choose to have their tooth root filled and restored with a filling or a crown so the tooth remains a working tooth for many more years. This is called endodontic therapy (a specialist concerned with root fillings is called an endodontist).

Identifying Problem Teeth

Dental nerve problems can cause toothache, teeth become tender and a dental abscess may develop (a gum boil). Some teeth with dental nerve disease may be symptomless and the dentist may identify these your routine x-ray pictures.

Is a Root Filling Painful

There are many scare stories about root fillings. These are often told by people who have neglected their dental health and as a result they have developed a substantial painful infection. Modern root filling procedures are very predictable and comfortable with a local anaesthetic. Many patients fall asleep during the proceedure! Painful experiences are very rare in our experience. We also recommened attending your dentist as soon as you experience any dental problems, don’t delay. Dental nerve problems with a recent onset are much easier to treat successffuly that problems that have become established over months or even years!

Endodontic treatment is best provided by appropriately trained and equipped dentists or endodontists. For example, root canals  and the instruments used to clean and shape the canals are only a fraction of a millimetre in diameter. This is effectively microsurgery and it is best carried with the aid of a clinical microscope to magnify and illuminate the dental pulp chamber inside each tooth.

What if I don’t have a root filling?

The tooth will deteriorate and may develop a painful dental nerve infection. Over time the tooth may become more difficult to treatment and may require extraction.

The treatment options include the following:

A root filling - the space inside the tooth where the dental nerve resided is cleaned and shaped and dressed with medicine. Then at a second visit filled with Gutta Percha (rubber) and sealed. The root filling is complete.

After a root filling your tooth is a little like an ‘empty cardboard box’ (if you stood on it – it would collapse). The tooth is sealed up inside to prevent bacteria from leaking into the canal space.

Front teeth – may need tooth coloured fillings to seal up the hole drilled in the back of them to access the dental nerve, this is called a composite filling.

Back teeth – These are often built up with a very strong silver amalgam alloy filling, an amalgam. This is called an amalgam dowel or Nayyar Core.

Badly damaged teeth - If a substantial amount of tooth is missing teeth may need a gold ‘jigsaw’ or cast gold post and core to cement into the inside of the tooth in order to build up the missing tooth structure ready for a crown to be cemented into place.

At our clinic we appreciated that it is advisable to have the foundation restoration placed inside the tooth immediately after the root filling is completed, root filled teeth are fragile and this eliminates the risk of unfavourable tooth fracture and effectively seals out bacteria which can cause the failure of root fillings.

After a root filling is completed

We post a brief report back to your general dentist with a copy of our dental x-rays, you simply arrange to visit your general dentist within a few weeks to plan any outstanding treatment e.g. a crown.