It is not necessary to immediately think about tooth extraction because of an inflamed tooth, as in most cases root canal treatment can save your own tooth.
Diseases of the dental pulp
Prolonged or regularly recurring irritation due to tooth decay or wear, or periodontal disease, can lead to blood excess in the dental pulp. This condition is characterized by an attack of pain upon cold stimuli, which, however, disappears spontaneously or under the influence of a mild analgesic drug and only reappears after another stimulus (eating, sucking candy, cold drink).
If the cause of the disease is not eliminated, medical treatment is not carried out, then, as a rule, an inflammation of the dental pulp with extremely severe pain, pulpitis (inflammation of the dental pulp) will develop. In such a case, the pain is characterized by an attack-like (“lightning-like”) action, high intensity. Pain is always triggered by a stimulus effect, but a pulpitis pain attack can develop without an obvious stimulus effect.
If the process is not in an advanced stage, the pain may subside somewhat after a period of time under upon analgesic medication, but it can only be expected to stop without treatment if the dental pulp decays as a result of the progression of the process and the worsening of the circulatory disorder.
If the inflammation has already spread to the root canal dentition and reaches the root apex opening, the root membrane is also affected. As a result, the sensitivity of the tooth to biting, knocking appears, which, if not treated, can cause periostitis.
In regions where inflammation of the bone around the tooth soon reaches the bone membrane, the process can also go to a resting point, and if the byproducts of defense mechanisms – pus – can be discharged, a process can often develop into a subjectively asymptomatic chronic inflammation. In this condition, the tooth no longer responds to thermal stimuli at all, possibly being sensitive to knocking, but over time, its sensitivity to knocking may also disappear.
Dental focus
Focal diseases are those diseases of individual organs or organ systems that can be stemmed from chronic inflammation of infectious origin that has developed in a distant point of the body. The primary inflammation that triggers the disease is the focus. A focus is a circumscribed, isolated inflammation located in the body, which rarely causes local symptoms. Chronic inflammations at the root tip of infected teeth with dead pulp may meet these criteria, so they are usually considered as starting points for focal diseases and are cured with root treatment.
Root treatment
The most important task during root treatment is to disinfect the root canal and seal it in the long term, which closes the penetration gate between the oral cavity and the inside of the jaw bone.
The procedure is expected to eliminate the infection and to prevent it from spreading to the tissues around the root tip, and to establish a balance between the treated tooth and the organism, which will trigger bone regeneration in the tissues around the root tip.