Root Canal Treatment (Endodontics)

Root canal treatment cleans and seals the inside of a tooth when the nerve has become inflamed or infected, allowing a natural tooth to be saved rather than extracted. Unimedex carries out endodontics with magnification and cone-beam CT imaging to locate and shape the canals accurately. Pricing scales with the number of canals, and a fibreglass post can be added to support a tooth that has lost a lot of structure before it is crowned.

Root canal treatment (endodontics) is needed when the soft tissue inside a tooth — the pulp, which contains the nerve and blood supply — becomes inflamed or infected through deep decay, a crack or a failing filling. The procedure removes that damaged tissue, cleans and disinfects the narrow canals inside the root, and then fills and seals them, which relieves pain and allows the natural tooth to be kept in function rather than removed. At Unimedex the treatment is carried out under local anaesthetic, and the clinic uses magnification together with cone-beam CT (3D) imaging where helpful to map the often complex internal anatomy of a tooth, locate every canal and judge their length and curvature accurately. Single-rooted front teeth usually have one canal, while back molars may have three or more, which is why pricing is set per canal. Re-treatment — reopening and re-cleaning a tooth that was root-filled before but has developed renewed problems — is more involved and priced accordingly. After the canals are sealed, a tooth that has lost a large amount of structure is often best rebuilt with a fibreglass post-and-core and then protected with a crown, since a root-treated tooth can become more brittle; the clinic offers both as part of a complete plan. Modern endodontic techniques mean the experience is typically comparable to having a routine filling, and well-treated teeth can last for many years.