If you have been informed that you require specialist root canal in Edinburgh, endodontic care or have concerns about your current dental health and wellbeing, feel free to get in contact with our clinic. We can then arrange an introductory meeting, otherwise feel free to direct your general dentist to our website where they will be able to refer through our pier-to-pier medical system.
What makes a root canal ‘complicated’?
At Edinburgh orthodontist we are a specialist root canal provider in Edinburgh, receiving most of our patients through referral as complicated cases, but what exactly is a complicated case? And why may you find yourself referred to us?
Teeth are unique as the patients who have them and unfortunately with this uniqueness comes variety and complexity. Much like there is not one size that fits all in people’s clothing jobs or lifestyles, there is not one treatment that can fit all when it comes to providing endodontic treatment to teeth. There are general rules that make some endodontic procedures more complicated than others; the first of which is the location in the mouth. Teeth at the front of the mouth are simpler and easier to gain access to than those that are located at the back. Also, any molar teeth possesses on average more roots, usually two more than a front tooth which are often singly rooted.
But even the number of roots that a tooth may have has its varieties, based on genetic and ethnic sectors with some having triple rooted molars and wisdom teeth having up to five independent roots. With a large number of roots also comes differences in their arrangements; although often leaner travelling from the base of the tooth into the jawbone, this is more of a textbook example or a simple case more often than not we see roots which have 90 degree bends or are intertwined with the roots of teeth adjacent to them.
When we see patients for root canal in Edinburgh with complicated root arrangements, we usually have them referred to us after the completion of an X-ray. Sometimes a patient is referred to us midway through their treatment, due to a wide range of factors, the most common of which is an extremely narrow canal, this can be less than 2 microns in width, barely enough to fit a nerve. They can be very challenging to locate and these patients arrive to us with a temporary filling in place as their local dentists will have attempted to remove the pulp and widen the canal only to find that they could not locate it.
Finally, we have the patients who are referred to us after receiving endodontic treatment but may be experiencing a reoccurrence of the original infection or abscess, or persistent discomfort which is not expected to continue long after the root canal has been performed. These complications have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis and may have many factors behind them. Being an endodontic specialist, we have the capacity to perform minor surgical procedures like root tip amputations in order to resolve stubborn recurring infections and deal with many post-procedure complications which may occur from root perforation to antibiotic-resistant infections.