About Endodontists: What Everyone Needs to Know

Dentist Blog

Since they restrict their practice exclusively to endodontic treatment, endodontists provide reliable and efficient dentistry, which trickles down to positive results and quicker healing. Here are some essential things you need to be aware about endodontists.

Who is an endodontist?

An endodontist is a dental practitioner who specializes in the treatment of infections, diseases and injuries occurring in the dental pulp, root canal and tissues surrounding teeth.

What dental treatment options can an endodontist provide?

Endodontists can provide the following treatment solutions to your dental problems:

1. Endodontic therapy: often referred to as root canal treatment, it is used to remove the diseased dental tissues and nerves from the root canals. When performing endodontic treatment, an endodontist will use small files to clean and shape the canals before sealing them to prevent any further infection.
2. Endodontic retreatment: even though endodontic therapy boasts of having a high success rate, there are some instances where a root canal becomes re-infected, thus necessitating endodontic retreatment. The re-infection might take place a few months or years after the initial treatment. Due to the complex nature of recurring pulp infections, make sure the retreatment is done by an endodontist.
3. Endodontic surgery: in the extreme cases where endodontic retreatment has failed to work or is not practical, endodontic surgery may be used as a last resort to salvage the tooth. Examples of endodontic surgery are apicoectomy, exploratory surgery, and intentional replantation among many other types of surgery.

Depending on the outcome of a dental diagnosis, an endodontist can assist you to choose the most suitable treatment option to restore teeth experiencing pulpal infection or disease.

Why choose an endodontist?

Endodontists are dentists with more advanced education and training in endodontic procedures such as apicoectomy, root canal treatment, microsurgery, and dental trauma management. A general dentist will usually refer a patient to an endodontist if they trust a better result can be attained for your teeth by seeing the endodontist. This is usually the case in complex cases where teeth have additional roots, unusual anatomy, narrow canals, etc.  

How can an endodontist achieve better results than a general dentist?

In general, endodontists are better armed to treat dental pulp infections and diseases and root canal problems since they deal with these types of problems on a daily basis. By removing the infected pulp, cleaning and shaping the root canals, the endodontist will alleviate any pain or inflammation and subsequently restore the normal functioning of your teeth.

Endodontists use advanced technology as well; they routinely use state-of-the-art microscopes, digital imaging systems, fiber optics, and ultrasonic equipment, to treat their patients in an effective and comfortable manner.   

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29 October 2015