Have you ever had a Root Canal...I did today..

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Abscess = bacterias passed through the infected pulp. If an abscess as formed, it is anatomically impossible to the pulp to be connected to nervous / vascular system (the abcess having a capsule...) so that means the pulp was necrotic, dead. You cannot have a purulous collection at the entry of the canal and have a healthy pulp inside
So no need for aneasthesia. And necrotic pulp = filled with pus, that's why you got the smell once he opened the tooth

I hope for you he drained the abscess well, or pus might have been left out, and it would be like suturating and bandaging a wound without cleaning it. Normally for such cases he is not supposed to put a definitive root filling in the same sitting (need to wait for "pressure" to drop before obturating) ; it is advised to put Ca(OH)2 in the canal between the two sittings to help cicatrisation (but that depends on the case).

And that's exactly how it went down... play by play.

 

[Kamilian]

i had a root canal about 2 weeks ago
i was horrified
i thought i was goin in for a filling, and then she suddenly says "ok, root canal". so while she was preparing the right drills and what-not, i was literally shaking the entire chair
she only gave me one shot to numb the thing. it did not work effectively. i felt so much pain and she also made me bleed, twice, which contributed to my terror and probably even enhanced psychologically the pain
when, at the end, she told me to come in at the end of the week for a full hour, i'm thinking "what the **** for?!". i have another appointment this friday to put the crown or cap or whatever it is on it since it's been reduced quite a bit as well. on that second appointment she explained to me why it hurt afterwards as well - because she pulled out the nerve - and it was so sensitive, and told me she didnt tell me she was pulling a nerve out cuz she thought, rightly, that i'd flip out

 

[skadistic]

Why did they remove all your teeth ?

Moved to Pennsilvania a few years ago after 2 months had 2 absesed teeth removed. After almost 2 years there a few were rotten to the gums and many were broken and chipped while eating or brushing. after having a few removed one at a time for pain reliefe from them abssesing I and the dentist decided that all the rest at once and dentures were the way to go. I've been in pain for a long time and soon it will be over with. Stiffer clean water standards would have prevented this. Pollution sucks.

 

[Blazer6]

I wish my worst ever pain was from a root canal. I had to get two wisdom teeth pulled (upper and lower). The many shots I took somehow did not do enough of a job stopping the endless pain for the hour.
The top one was relatively easy enough to remove but the lower one was a mix of several kinds of pain. It has not fully pushed out so the tooth had to be drilled to the point of burning, cut to divide it, and individually pulled out after working each piece like you do with loose teeth. My fourth wisdom tooth was barely a bump in my gums so thankfully I was spared even more shots and pain. I had tears streaming from the pain, stitches, my mouth was flowing with blood for hours and had to be drained quickly, and a puffed face that effectively closed an eye.

My fourth wisdom finally did drop two months ago and is crooked, but doesn't conflict with the teeth that had braces.

 

[Comraddict]

I'm having two on Wednesday - both teeth have abscesses. So it shouldn't hurt.

 

[7ronin]

I have had three root canals over a twenty year time span. The most recent (2003) was completely painless.

 

[MobBoss]

@MobBoss : u seem to have a good dentist One thing though : he wants to put a crown on it, most likely because devitalized teeth are weaker and more fragile than vital ones. This is often a good therapeutic choice (not just a way to get a coupla more hundred $$ from you )

And an advice : next time take max dose painkiller pills at the dentist just after the extraction/act, if needed. They take like 1 hour to get to optimal effect, and that period will be covered by the Novocain. If you wait before taking them, Novocain will be down before the pills make their full effect...

Hope that helped, and sorry for my english

ZiP!

The best part about it is that it didnt cost me a penny, nor will the followup as I am in the military. As for the crown, yeah, besides the earlier filling and now the root canal, I can feel the tooth is fairly ground down on one side with my tongue so it needs something to keep it from possibly fracturing if I bite something hard on that side by accident. Got a follow up appt for a referral on Monday, will let you know how it goes.

 

[ZiP!]

I'm having two on Wednesday - both teeth have abscesses. So it shouldn't hurt.

LMAO now because of me everyone on CFC is gonna wait to have an abscess before going to the dentist :S but pretty please don't do that 'coz if abscesses are quiet benign, they can easily evoluate into massive and critical facial infections (which can even threaten life pronostic...)

And just to warn you, it can still hurt. Depend on the type of infection/abscess. If it's not hurting you right now, spontaneously, there are big chances it won't hurt you when you get the canal treatment.
Also, for molars and 1rst upper bicuspids, you have more than 2 roots, so you can have a necrosed part while the other part will still be only inflamated (and you can't just root canal half of a tooth, if you do it it's for the entire pulp)
Good luck Comraddict and just concentrate on the fact, that if it's quiet painfull, it's a pain for a greater good (you don't want to have pus evacuating directly into your mouth do you??)

I wish my worst ever pain was from a root canal. I had to get two wisdom teeth pulled (upper and lower). The many shots I took somehow did not do enough of a job stopping the endless pain for the hour.
The top one was relatively easy enough to remove but the lower one was a mix of several kinds of pain. It has not fully pushed out so the tooth had to be drilled to the point of burning, cut to divide it, and individually pulled out after working each piece like you do with loose teeth. My fourth wisdom tooth was barely a bump in my gums so thankfully I was spared even more shots and pain. I had tears streaming from the pain, stitches, my mouth was flowing with blood for hours and had to be drained quickly, and a puffed face that effectively closed an eye.

Had a wisdom tooth pulled out myself, by a professor (and friend) from the hospital (needless to say, I asked him because he's quiet competent). Lower wisdom tooth (these are hard to painkill 'coz the bone around them is kinda compact and novocain doesn't diffuse well through it). Took 1h15. I actually felt the pain the whole way (when it was getting to hurting I asked him to shot me once more. He had to drill the toth to cut it to 3 parts, and to drill the jaw bone around the tooth in order to have access to the root. When he finished I asked him if I could see the work in a mirror, he answered : No I wont let you, I actually had to butcher you.
Worst thing though was the taste of burnt dentin in the back of my throat (because I knew what that taste was ), and it took me 2 months to be able to open my mouth completly (because of the swelling)
Still he did a good work, and I'm going back for the upper one to equilibrate jaw relationship (though, as you said, upper wisdom teeth are much easier, and also much easier to painkill which is a good point for the patient)
You can always have all 4 removed at once at the hospital, but I wanted to be awake to follow the procedure, and when you're awake the surgeon tends to be a lot less agressive (true!!!)

 

[shortguy]

Only thing I've had was wisdom teeth removal. I didn't find it so bad as people seem to believe.