Root Treatment
Root canal therapy refers to the treatment of the inner aspects of a tooth, specifically that area inside a tooth originally occupied by the tooth's "pulp tissue". Most people would probably refer to a tooth's pulp tissue as its "nerve". While a tooth's pulp tissue does contain nerve fibers, it is also composed of arteries, veins, lymph vessels, and connective tissue.
For the purposes of this discussion, so to use a term people seem to be most familiar with, we will use the terms "nerve" and "nerve tissue" to refer to a tooth's pulp tissue.
What are the functions of a tooth's nerve tissue?
You might think that a tooth's nerve tissue is vitally important to a tooth's health and function, but in reality it is not. A tooth's nerve tissue plays an important role in the growth and development of the tooth, but once the tooth has erupted through the gums and has finished maturing the nerve's only function is sensory (it provides the tooth with the ability to feel hot and cold).
In regards to the normal day to day functioning of our mouths, the sensory information provided by a single tooth is really quite minimal. Dentists realize that on a practical level it is pretty much academic whether a tooth has a live nerve in it or not. If a tooth's nerve tissue is present and healthy, wonderful. But if a tooth has had its nerve tissue removed during root canal treatment that is fine too, you will never miss it.
Where precisely in a tooth is its nerve?
While teeth are hard calcified objects, they are not completely solid. In the inner most aspect of every tooth there lies a hollow space which, when a tooth is healthy, contains the tooth's nerve tissue. Dentists use the following terms to refer to various portions of this nerve area:
The pulp chamber: This is a hollow space that lies more or less in the centre of the tooth.
The root canals: Each tooth's nerve enters the tooth, in generalities, at the tip of its root(s). From this point, the nerve then runs through the centre of the root in small "root canals" which subsequently join up with the tooth's pulp chamber.
What is the purpose of root canal treatment?
Our bodies, as a defence mechanism, will initiate an "inflammation reaction" when irritants (such as those seeping out of a problematic tooth) have injured or destroyed body tissues. If incorporating the term "inflammation" into our description we would then say, root canal treatment is the treatment of the inner aspects of a tooth (whose nerve has undergone degenerative changes) so to provide an environment where the tissues surrounding a tooth's root are free of, and will likely to continue to be free of, the presence of inflammation.
How does root canal treatment accomplish this goal?
In a nutshell, the process of root canal treatment first removes (as thoroughly as possible) bacteria, nerve tissue, the organic debris left over from the breakdown of nerve tissue, and bacterial toxins out from within the inner aspects of a tooth (the area originally occupied by the tooth's nerve tissue).
All of these items either are or will produce the tissue irritants that can cause your body to activate an inflammation reaction. Subsequently, once this space has been cleansed root canal treatment involves filling in and sealing off the interior of the tooth. This is done as a means of minimizing the possibility that bacteria will be able to re-colonize the inner aspects of the tooth or that the interior of the tooth can fill in with tissue fluid that could become stagnant and subsequently break down. (Either of these situations could produce a state of persistent inflammation in the bone that surrounds the tooth's root.) The seal also contains and encapsulates any debris that could not be fully removed during the cleaning aspect of the root canal treatment process so that it can not leak out and trigger an inflammation reaction.
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