Root canal retreatment

[cm5689]

My dentist found a small fracture in a 20+ year old root canal and wants me to see an endodontist for retreatment. My question is will I need the very painful numbing injection or just the normal numbing injection? I can handle the normal one well but I’m terrified of the super painful ones. I just had a new root canal a couple weeks ago and the injection was super painful

 

[Gordon]

Might help to know which tooth it is?

 

[cm5689]

Oh yeah, sorry. It’s tooth #30

 

[Gordon]

And the one that got the "super painful" injection? People normally find the upper front teeth the most painful to get injections for, (they shouldn't ever be super painful though!).

Lower molars aren't normally too bad. Again, nothing should be super painful if the injections are done with some care.

 

[Vaidile]

@cm5689, I've had a lot of work (including a root canal) on lower molars lately. For those, you're most likely getting a nerve block. They are not particularly comfortable, but I wouldn't call them very painful. But a lot depends of the dentist's technique.

 

[cm5689]

The injection that really hurt was a new root canal on an upper molar. I believe it might have been in the roof of my mouth. I was hoping that since this molar on the bottom is a retreatment and the tooth already has no nerves I wouldn’t need to be numbed as much as if it was new. I’ll just expect the worst but hope for the best, lol

 

[Vaidile]

The injection that really hurt was a new root canal on an upper molar. I believe it might have been in the roof of my mouth.

Oh yeah, that would be a palatal; those suck. Thankfully, they are just for the upper jaw! And you're right that with retreatment you won't need much numbing (or any - my dentist said it was not necessary to numb for the second half of my root canal, when the nerves were already gone. But I'll always choose the needle over the possibility of pain during treatment).

You should be absolutely fine.