I haven’t had a root canal in 50 years and I remember nothing about that experience. But I’m scheduled for one on Monday.
Normally I just use nitrous for all procedures, including crowns. Never had any pain during or after and I go home with no lingering numbness. Not to mention I hate the injection process for lidocaine. I don’t use nitrous to relieve anxiety; just to replace the needles and numbness, which do.
Supposedly root canals have changed a lot in 50 years. What’s your experiences?
Mostly painless for me. The usual discomfort and soreness afterward. Prepare to be in the chair for about an hour and a half.
I had one a couple of years ago, the first one about 30 years ago. I anxious about it in advance, because that one I remembered was rough, but this was pretty easy other than, as already noted, the long time in the chair.
Yeah, I’ve had two or three. Not recently, but honestly, much less of a deal than people often make them out to be. Painless except for the soreness afterward. My wallet felt much more pain than I did.
I only have my experience to go on but they’ve gotten a lot better than they once were.
I went to an endodontist (dentists who specialize in doing root canals…among other things). Boy did they have it down to an efficient process.
By FAR the worst part were the shots of novocaine (or whatever it was that numbed your mouth). Of particular note and pain was the shot in the roof of the mouth (hard palate). Wowzer did that one hurt! But it only lasted three seconds and it was over.
After that I couldn’t feel a thing.
The dental assistant got it all setup. Dentist walked in and gave me shots. Walked out. Came back five minutes later and had at it. It was done in a matter of minutes (maybe 10) and no pain. All told I spent maybe 30(ish) minutes there.
Went back to my regular dentist to get a crown fitted (which they printed in their office which was pretty cool and hi-tech at the time).
Last Thursday I had three wisdom teeth removed and a molar by an oral surgeon. Similar experience. It was 60 minutes almost to the minute from entering their front door to leaving. Also surprisingly painless (same shot in the roof of the mouth though but once done you literally cannot feel your whole face). The pain came later on that one though but not as bad as I thought. Really the worst part so far is not being able to eat much (even soft foods are a bit of a problem).
As @Siam_Sam noted…the real pain was to the pocketbook. These were not cheap and I do not have dental insurance. The dental surgeon wanted $330 per 15 minutes for anesthesia (which would have been $1000 right there). I opted for nitrous which worked fine. Over $2000 for the whole procedure though.
YMMV
Same here. The root canal wasn’t bad, it was the two or three shots of Novocaine (which apparently has to be injected with what feels like a turkey baster) that sucked. But, of course, those shots are WHY the next 90min isn’t as terrible as old jokes and TV shows would have you believe.
I haven’t had a root canal in at least fifteen years, probably much longer, so things have probably changed. But in my recollection, root canals on front teeth are pretty simple. Root canals on molars are a bigger deal. Back in the day, it typically took two visits to do a molar.
I never even considered any sort of systemic anaesthetic like nitrous oxide as the needle and topical anaesthetic wasn’t that much of an issue. The procedure itself wasn’t so much painful as just unpleasant, much of the unpleasantness coming from the possibility that as the dentist drilled away, he might hit a nerve, which happened a couple of times and does produce quite a jolt of pain. At which point the dentist squirted anaesthetic directly into the cavity, and carried on.
I imagine there have been significant improvements since those days, but even then it wasn’t that big a deal.
Yeah. The only really bad part is sitting there for over an hour. And it can be less.
It’ll be even longer for me.
I was scheduled to have permanent crowns replace two temporary ones from before and then do another chipped crown. The assistant took an x-ray and put it up on the screen before the dentist came in. Dentists today refer to teeth by numbers, so when he walked in he took a quick look at the screen and confirmed, “We’re doing 13 today.” No, said the assistant, “we’re doing 14.”
Everybody panicked.
When it got sorted, we figured out that 14 was the chipped crown I had actually come in for. But the adjacent tooth, 13, had what he called a huge cavity. So we decided to do 13 and 14 together, and booked two and a half hours for Monday.
That is a long time in the chair. The important thing is that you don’t care as much about time when under nitrous. Which makes it doubly important.
If you spend two hours in a chair with your mouth propped open I think you will find one of the things that hurts most when you go home are your jaw muscles at the back of your jaw. Just having my mouth propped open for 40 minutes when I had my wisdom teeth out was enough to make mine ache afterwards.
It’s not a huge deal but you notice it. They get sore.
My first one, well over a decade ago was fine. Needles didn’t hurt that much. No pain after. I never went for a crown, and years later they pulled it.
2 years ago I mistakenly agreed to one. It hurt during, while I was novocained! Throbbed the rest of the night. Still sensitive and I cant really eat on it. Will probly get it pulled. I think he didn’t take all of the nerve out.
That’s if you’re having a molar root-canaled, because they obviously have several canals.
Mine was on tooth #11 (upper left canine) and didn’t take anywhere near as long.
I’m spoilering it because I don’t want to scare anyone, but in my case, the root canal failed, and I had to have an apicoectomy, which consists of peeling back the gum and bone, which is about the thickness of an eggshell, over the diseased root, and trimming away and debriding any abnormal tissue. I had nightmares about the procedure, and in the end, it took about 10 minutes and was less traumatic that a filling. It sure felt weird, however.
I have had three. Two were unpleasant, the other was, by far, the most painful experience of my life.
As it turns out, the numbing was not effective. There was much filing needed that went very deep into the root. With every upward movement of the file, it literally struck a nerve.
It didn’t help that the dentist paused several times during the filing, and gave the impression with each pause that the filing part was completed, then went right back at it.
mmm
When I had mine, I was given a bite block, which propped my mouth open, and for me, the biggest fear was that I would experience what other people told me had happened to them, and that was a very foul odor filling the room when the pulp chamber was entered. That didn’t happen, either, and in fact the dentist said I really didn’t need anesthesia because “That tooth’s dead.” I insisted anyway, and he did do it.
Two visits are usually warranted because they install a temporary filling for a few weeks, and replace it later with a permanent one.
Actually it wasn’t bad at all. Oral surgeon referred to by my dentist. Not a quick procedure with major numbing time and phases of progress with ongoing check ins from staff. Comfortable at home and dressing extracted as expected.
I’d do it again 
I had one fifty years ago, and it hurt like hell.
About twenty years later, I had another, and was amazed at how much less pain there was. I’ve had several since, and never needed anything more than local anesthesia.
IME they’ve really improved things.
It’s sore afterward, but I’ve never used (or wanted to use) pain meds. I usually plan to drink my meals for the next day or so.
On the plus side, I can use the immediate-post numbness to do “Rocky” impersonations.
What kind of pain meds?
For my recent wisdom tooth extraction (which is definitely worse than my root canals) they just gave me ibuprofen and told me to use acetaminophen (Tylenol) if I needed something more. All OTC stuff. No narcotics.
While my pain has not been bad the ibuprofen helps a little at taking the edge off.
Having the procedure wasn’t the bad part. The endodontist missed a canal- on two different teeth, and cracked one while doing so. This did not become apparent until both teeth had to be extracted. Of course, I received no refund or even an “I’m sorry”. The excuse was “Canals are missed all the time”.
I’m still pissed off about it, 15 years later.
I had one I think earlier this year, it was almost entirely painless. It’s more boring than anything.
I’ve had two root canals. One while I was in the Army. The military dentist at Presidio of Monterey did an amazing job and the horrendous pain was all in the reason for the root canal in the first place. I was in the chair for about three hours and was quite pleased with the result of course.
The second one I had just a few years ago in Beijing, China. Again, the horrendous pain was in the reason for the root canal in the first place. The dentist did an awesome job. The interesting thing for me was that it wasn’t done in one session. I had a total of three sessions, the final one being the installatio of a permanent cap on the tooth concerned.
p.s. I though dentists stopped using novocaine and used lidocaine now. Is that correct?