The painful part of a root canal is the part before it

Ask most people what a root canal feels like and you will get a description of severe, throbbing, sleep-ruining pain. That description is accurate. It is just describing the wrong thing.

What actually hurts

When the pulp inside a tooth becomes infected or badly inflamed, the pressure has nowhere to go. The tooth is a rigid box. That is the pain people remember — and it is what brings them to the clinic in the first place, often at the point where nothing over the counter is touching it.

The treatment is what removes that pressure. It is done under local anaesthetic, and most patients report that the relief begins during the appointment itself.

Why the reputation stuck

Root canal treatment has been done for a long time, and techniques, anaesthetic and instruments have all improved considerably. The reputation is largely inherited from an era with fewer of those advantages — and passed along by people who have never had one.

The decision that actually matters

The real question is rarely whether to have the root canal. It is whether to keep the tooth or remove it. A natural tooth, even a treated one, holds its place in the arch, carries load the way it was designed to, and costs less over a lifetime than replacing it.

If you are putting off an appointment because of what you have heard, that delay is more likely to cost you the tooth than the treatment ever was.

General information only. It is not a substitute for an examination — book an appointment for advice about your own teeth.