A Painful Root Canal - Advice would be very much appreciated.

[Macavatar]

I went to the dentist this morning to have the first part of a root canal treatment. It was really painful and continued to be, in spite of the dentist stopping to inject more anaesthetic at my request. In the end, he was only able to get part way down the nerve in the time we had (it was an NHS appt), so he sealed it up and said I would have to come back in a month.

Afterward, he explained that the tooth was very infected and that it was an ‘angry nerve’. He said that hopefully it would settle down before the next appointment, at which point he could finish drilling out the nerve. I asked if I needed antibiotics, but he explained that the infection is contained in the tooth, and so isn’t necessary (this didn’t make sense to me, surely getting rid of the infection would be important to continuing with the process, contained or not?)

I’m anxious about the dentist at the best of times, and I’m really reluctant to go back and continue with the treatment. If it’s going to continue to be that painful, I won’t be able to get through it.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

 

[Gordon]

Getting most of the infected pulp out will help a lot, as will the sedative dressing that the dentist will have put into the canal. It should be much easier to get numb in future.