Can a Root Canal Affect Your Brain?

If the internal nerves of your tooth are damaged due to a deep cavity or injury then you might require a root canal. The damage to the root of the tooth causes immense pain, and you can develop sensitivity to food and drinks, which are only at room temperatures. A damaged and painful tooth needs immediate attention from your dentist.

Causes For a Damaged Tooth Pulp
There can be many different reasons for a damaged tooth; some of those can be:

• Wrong food habits like excess sweets or sugary drinks
• Certain medications can deteriorate the health of your teeth over time
• Injury or accident that affects the tooth enamel
• If there are a lot of dental treatments done to a tooth, it can also cause damage.

Myths About Root Canal and Brain Damage
The root canal is a fearful and uneasy concept to many of us, which gives rise to various myths around the process. The massive pain associated with the root canal was there in old times but with modern technology, which involves anesthetics, the pain of going through the process is much less than living with a damaged tooth.

Let take a look at a few other myths linked with a root canal:

• A root canal can affect your brain: If you search the internet, you might find lots of information with claims of many illnesses after a root canal. Some of the research on the internet says that root canals can cause cancer, or most brain cancer patients have gone through a root canal. These claims are entirely false and propagated due to poorly designed and debunked research work done by Dr. Weston Prince almost a century ago. But no valid scientific evidence has been established between root canal causing disease elsewhere in the body such as cancer.
• Better pull the damaged tooth out than get the root canal done: It is always better to save your natural teeth than removing them and replacing them with artificial ones. Artificial teeth cannot match the appearance and function of your natural teeth. Endodontic treatments like root canal have proved to be highly successful where teeth treated by root canal have lasted a lifetime. Going for an implant or bridge is more time-consuming since these treatments also require procedures to be done on supporting tissues and neighboring teeth.

Root canals are an extremely effective, safe, and unobtrusive procedure for the treatment of damaged and infected teeth. Root canals not only allow you to preserve your natural teeth but also eliminate the bacteria that caused the infection and prevent re-infection.

Schedule your appointment with a dentist today and get the treatment on time!