Clinical content reviewed by Dr. Ash Kler, DDS ·
No procedure carries a worse reputation on thinner evidence. Let's retire the greatest hits.
The agony people remember is the infected tooth before treatment. The procedure itself happens under profound local anesthesia and feels comparable to a long filling. The root canal is what ends the pain.
Nothing we manufacture matches the tooth you grew. Extraction also starts a chain: bone shrinkage, drifting neighbours, and a replacement bill (implant or bridge) that usually exceeds the root canal and crown that would have saved it.
This zombie claim traces to research from the 1920s, conducted before modern microbiology, and discredited for the better part of a century. Modern evidence is clear: root canal treatment removes infection; it does not seed it.
A treated tooth loses its nerve, not its function. Anchored in bone, it chews, holds its neighbours in line, and preserves your bite exactly as before, typically for decades.
Most root canals today are completed in one visit, and with CEREC technology, the protective crown can often be made the same day. One office, one afternoon, done.
Nerves sometimes die quietly. A dark tooth, a gum pimple, or an X-ray finding can reveal infection that never announced itself, and silent infections still damage bone.
An abscessed tooth sometimes stops hurting when the nerve dies fully. The infection remains, now without an alarm system. Pain that vanishes on its own has gone quiet, not away.
Toothache, or a tooth gone suspiciously silent? Get it looked at: (250) 372-2326.
Have questions about your own smile? Call (250) 372-2326 or request an appointment.