“I’ve got some caps, and now my dentist has told me I need a crown on another tooth. What is the difference?”
A cap or crown - they’re the same thing and simply refer to complete coverage of the tooth. Caps/crowns are generally necessary when teeth have gotten weak from previous large fillings to protect them from fracturing or teeth that have fractured and now they need support. Crowns are also placed on top of implants or on teeth that have had root canal treatment.
“I’ve been told I need a root canal treatment, but I’ve got a crown on the tooth. Can it still be done?”
Root Canal Treatment needs access to the nerve inside the tooth. This means drilling into the tooth, if there is a crown on we can more often than not just drill through it in the same way we would with a natural tooth.
There are times when a crown/bridge may need to be removed, this is usually if theyve been placed onto teeth were they mask the orientation of the tooth beneath and make accessing the nerve very difficult to find. Your dentist or endodontist would advise you before they removed anything.
“I’ve been told I need a Root Canal on one of my teeth, and the appointment has been booked for 2 hours, will it take this long?”
Root Canal Treatment (RCT) can take a range of time, and sometimes may be spread over two visits. The time can vary depending on many things. For example firstly, the tooth that is being treated – (the further back the tooth becomes in your mouth it generally has more roots – which means more root canals!) Secondly whether the tooth has been root filled before, this can mean time is needed to remove the previous root filling which again can be time consuming. There are many more factors that can dictate how long it might take.
The thing to bear in mind is that we also need to allocate time in the appointment for things besides the actual root treatment. Things like waiting for you to get numb and talking to you about post operative care.
Finally, the time that you are actually having the treatment will be made as comfortable as possible - with the use of rubber dam and anaesthetic you wont be feeling or tasting anything in your mouth. So you can lay back, listen to the music, relax and even have a little snooze!
“I’ve had a Root Canal Treatment and now my tooth’s changed colour and looks dark compared to the rest, is there anything you can do?”
Of course! We can do whats called internal bleaching – which is exactly what it sounds like – we put the bleach inside the tooth rather than normal whitening on the outside surface. Plus there’s always veneers and crowns that can make things look more like you want them to.
