For Infected and Dying Teeth
Root canal therapy is a dental procedure that is used to treat infected or dying teeth. There is a nerve in each individual tooth inside your mouth that can feel pain like that of when you touch something hot with your hands.
Once the nerve of a tooth is infected, the nerve usually cannot be saved and needs to be cleaned out. If left alone, the insides of the tooth will often start to rot and cause the infection to become progressively worse over time.
With root canal therapy, the insides are removed and filled with a rubber like material and the hard shell is left intact. This allows the tooth to remain functional but in a weakened state increasing risk of fracture. It is recommended that a root canal treated tooth is crowned afterwards.