Melbourne Root Canal Guide: Treatment, Costs, and Cheapest Suburbs to Get One

Few signs that a root canal is needed are:

1. Severe / Extreme Pain: Certain types of pain hint at a root canal treatment being needed. If the pain stings and shoots spontaneously, that can be indicative of a dead or infected tooth. If the pain intensifies in pressure positions like bending down or laying down, it may be possible that it’s root canal pain.

2. Bumps on the Gums: Pimple resembling bumps known as fistula can be indicative of a tooth in need of a root canal treatment.

3. Sensitivity to Cold and Hot: many people experience hot and cold sensation. This doesn’t necessarily imply a root canal is in need of treatment. However, if the pain lingers long after the food or drink, then that may be the case.

4. Swollen Gums: Swollen gums may indicate the presence of an infected tooth.

5. Gums becoming dark: decaying of the gums is evident from their darkening. Gums begin to decay when either a tooth is dying or when there’s an infection present. This is a very strong sign a root canal treatment is needed soon.

6. Cracked or Chipped Tooth: A crack or a chip indicates a tooth has experienced trauma resulting in an infected or inflamed pulp. It can also mean the tooth has been dead for a while and that may have caused the chipping or cracking. A root canal treatment would be the one way of saving whatever can be saved of the tooth.

7. Tender Gums: dentists take note of tender gums almost immediately. The tenderness may be evident by touching or, sometimes, even without touching.

8. Abscess: these appear as dark spots on x-rays. It’s a hole in the jawbone resulting from missing bone growth around an infected area.

Dentists make use of professional methods to determine whether endodontic therapy is required for addressing root canal pain. Some of the methods they use are obtaining your x-ray. This helps them really understand if there is a problem, and how deep it runs. They may even tap on the problem tooth and ask you what the sensation is like. They can even go for thermal testing, which is using hot or cold stimuli to check for sensitivity in the area.

Though dentists have all these options, they may not necessarily utilize all methods mentioned above in one go. They will determine root canal pain and the need for a root canal treatment by running few of these methods. To be absolutely certain, a dentist may use x-rays along with a few other techniques to establish the need for endodontic therapy.

X-rays: Interestingly, not all teeth experiencing from root canal pain will show swelling. This can lead to a delay in detection. However, showing up at the dentist’s clinic for a regular x-ray examination can help with early identification. This is of high utility in determining the way forward.

Having said that, x-rays don’t always indicate a root canal is needed.

Gum Boils: fistulous tracts, as they’re known, are of great interest to dentists. These boils effectively serve as pus drains, allowing it to discharge instead of pervading soft tissues around the teeth. It’s the blockages in these drains that lead the pus to cause swelling. Again, even though these drain blockages may be causing discomfort, they don’t automatically imply the need for a root canal treatment.

Discoloration: this indicates that some changes have taken place within a tooth’s nerve space. This is a significant potential indicator that root canal therapy is going to be called for. Discoloration indicates trauma has been incurred by a tooth. The tooth darkens and can, at times, be accompanied by swelling or toothache.

Nerve Exposure: dentists need to determine if they can make contact with pulp tissue during a root canal treatment. Exposure of the nerve can incite tissue degeneration.

Further Testing: to be absolutely certain a root canal treatment is required; dentists will utilize the following testing methods:

• Tapping on the problem tooth
• Thermal and electric testing
• Selective anaesthesia
• cavity test, and,
• further x-rays from various angles

When a problematic tooth is tapped on, it should result in pain. Dentists use that reaction from patients to establish the presence of root canal pain. They can then pave the way for a root canal treatment. Thermal and electric testing also help establish the same through the manifestation of pain.

In cases where patients are unable to identify the source of pain, dentists will rely on administering selective anaesthesia. This helps to pinpoint the specific tooth where the pain has made home.

If a case is precarious, cavity tests are brough in where a divot is drilled into a tooth to check the health of nerve tissues.

Firstly, it should be understood that more than one factors determine the overall cost of a root canal therapy. These factors include:

• Who has carried out the procedure; between a general dentist and an endodontist, the latter will be higher in price.
• Which tooth is the root canal being performed on and the case’s complexity are also determinants of a procedure’s price. This is because the number of canals vary in different teeth.
• At times, a simple filling suffices. However, most of the times, a dental crown is needed.

The average cost of a root canal in Melbourne is $1,392.40. Here are the cheapest suburbs to get root canals in Melbourne:

• Kew – $600
• Richmond – $900
• Port Melbourne – $1,000
• Doncaster – $1,038
• Hawthorn – $1,200