It is therefore important to clean the infected centre of the tooth and replace it with a sterile root filling. This may take 1 or 2 visits depending on the level of infection and the number of roots in the tooth. Back teeth have several roots and take a little longer to treat. Your dentist will advise you on the treatment time. Several x-rays are usually taken when a tooth is root filled.

Once the dentist is happy that the root filling has settled, a crown will usually be required on a back tooth that has been root treated, to prevent it fracturing as root treated teeth are weak. If you do not want your tooth to be root filled then the alternative is usually an extraction.

Generally, patients seem to have heard horror stories about root fillings. At Ashwater, we carry out all procedures using local anaesthetic. If the tooth is sore during treatment, the procedure is stopped and antibiotics will be used for a few days. A root treatment should not feel any different to any other dental procedure.

If the tooth has already been root treated and needs to be re-root treated, or is a difficult tooth to treat, we will offer you a referral to a specialist endodontist (there are several in the area).