You might not understand why there are "root canal" cases in the Smile Gallery but it is easy to explain. If the nerve of a tooth gets infected, you will not be smiling because it can be a very uncomfortable sensation. Most of the discomfort associated with root canal treatment is the discomfort you feel before having any treatment. The goal of root canal treatment is to get you out of pain, and to get you smiling again!

What a root canal attempts to do is remove the diseased tissues (indicated by the yellow arrow), which contains the nerve and blood supply of a tooth, with a rubber type material. The area that is filled is called the "root canal." The root canal of each tooth is very different. The reason this tooth needed a root canal was due to decay (indicated by the white arrow) entering the pulp.

This is what the completed root canal looks like on an x-ray. This tooth had three canals, which you can see by the white filling material in the root portion of the tooth.