MythicParty
2014-02-19, 12:02 PM
From Rich's announcement on 2-18:
"Getting a root canal. Three visits to the dentist expected. I'm planning on not working those days."
I wanted to offer my perspective as someone also currently in need of a root canal. Here are a few key things that I've learned after doing a little digging (pardon the pun) into them:
*fewer visits are better: one study found "single-visit root canal treatment appears to be slightly more effective than multiple visits, that is, it had a 6.3% higher healing rate (http://www.nature.com/ebd/journal/v7/n1/full/6400372a.html)."
*the technology capable of fewer visits is called CEREC (Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramics) & has a # of advantages: http://www.overland-park-dentist.com/cerec.php#advantages
*lasers can do root canals and like treating fillings, have much better results (http://www.drsimonrosenberg.com/Laser-Root-Canal-on-The-Doctors.html)
*utilizing ozone gas during the procedure can help kill bacteria, which is crucial
*another alternative is direct pulp capping (http://www.slideshare.net/SAMOUAWAD/direct-pulp-capping)
*and advances are coming all the time; most recently is something called 'SealBio' which "uses body’s own stem cells and eliminates the need for cumbersome root canal fillings (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23112478)."
*finally, not to sound like a tinfoil hat guy but there are some in the medical field who advocate avoiding root canals completely as they believe that bacteria cannot be permanently removed & the procedure actually forces them to become more resilient, then invade the rest of the body through dentin tubules. Something to at least Google.
If this should be posted in a different section, I apologize. But hoping that at least some of this can help Rich- or anyone else needing tooth surgery for that matter.
"Getting a root canal. Three visits to the dentist expected. I'm planning on not working those days."
I wanted to offer my perspective as someone also currently in need of a root canal. Here are a few key things that I've learned after doing a little digging (pardon the pun) into them:
*fewer visits are better: one study found "single-visit root canal treatment appears to be slightly more effective than multiple visits, that is, it had a 6.3% higher healing rate (http://www.nature.com/ebd/journal/v7/n1/full/6400372a.html)."
*the technology capable of fewer visits is called CEREC (Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramics) & has a # of advantages: http://www.overland-park-dentist.com/cerec.php#advantages
*lasers can do root canals and like treating fillings, have much better results (http://www.drsimonrosenberg.com/Laser-Root-Canal-on-The-Doctors.html)
*utilizing ozone gas during the procedure can help kill bacteria, which is crucial
*another alternative is direct pulp capping (http://www.slideshare.net/SAMOUAWAD/direct-pulp-capping)
*and advances are coming all the time; most recently is something called 'SealBio' which "uses body’s own stem cells and eliminates the need for cumbersome root canal fillings (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23112478)."
*finally, not to sound like a tinfoil hat guy but there are some in the medical field who advocate avoiding root canals completely as they believe that bacteria cannot be permanently removed & the procedure actually forces them to become more resilient, then invade the rest of the body through dentin tubules. Something to at least Google.
If this should be posted in a different section, I apologize. But hoping that at least some of this can help Rich- or anyone else needing tooth surgery for that matter.