It is something that we all do not look forward to, though we tend to get amused when somebody is about to get a root canal done.
In fact, when somebody asks for a root canal specifically, even the dentists do find it odd.
This dental treatment has been in practice for many centuries and the earlier civilizations resorted to this technique to protect and save teeth that they would have lost otherwise if they had not taken any action.
Royal kings, queens and the very rich took the help of root canal treatment to save their teeth.
It is believed that the poor routinely used to sell their good teeth to the rich.
It was traditionally thought that worms were the main causes for tooth decay.
People used to think that they could kill the worms by rinsing their mouth with their own urine twice a day and prevent any tooth from decaying.
By the year 1728, this practice was discovered to be useless and they began to look for a better method of saving teeth that had decayed.
With the passage of time, dentists found that the best way to save teeth that had decayed was to first clean the area and cut off the nerve as well as the decayed pulp of the tooth so that the tooth need not be extracted and the person can continue to use it.
These days, this procedure is very common as people wish to save the tooth and are willing to bear some pain in order to do so.
If the decayed pulp is extracted, the chances of it spreading is eliminated.
The pulp tissue is however kept intact by blood flowing through the root tip and entering the tooth through the root canal provided for its passage.
It is decay that causes the tooth to fall off or cause immense pain.
Once the pulp is affected by the decay, it is a matter of time before the pulp is totally eaten away and then the toxins accumulated start entering the root tip and make their entry in to the jawbone.
If nothing is done at this stage, the jawbone gets affected and can even be fatal.
Dentists do a root canal procedure to prevent this from happening and during this process, they first desensitize the affected area before drilling a hole that helps them go deep into the tooth to flush out the decay.