Recovering From Your Root Canal: Tips For You
When you go to the dentist for a tooth ache and find out that you have an infection in the dental pulp of your tooth, you will likely receive the recommendation from your dentist that you undergo a root canal procedure. If you have never had a root canal before, you may wonder what the after-effects and recovery process will be like and what you can expect. Get to know more about the root canal recovery process so that you can be prepared and take the best possible care of yourself following your root canal procedure.
Immediately After Your Root Canal
When your root canal procedure is over, you mouth and face will likely still be numb due to the local anesthesia that your dentist used during the procedure. As such, you will likely want to take a little time to relax before you resume your regular daily activities.
In fact, because the length of time it takes for anesthesia to wear off varies so much from person to person, you may want to take the entire day of your root canal procedure off from work and other organized activities to rest and recover. After the anesthesia wears off, you may experience pain and discomfort as your tooth and the tissue around it will still need to heal. Ibuprofen or other over-the-counter pain medications can help with this discomfort.
The Week Following Your Root Canal
In the week or so following your root canal procedure, you will be in what is known as the "healing period." As such, your tooth or teeth may not feel 100 percent back to normal but should continue to improve over the course of that week.
This means that your pain and discomfort should be much less than they were immediately after surgery. Immediately after surgery, you may feel some tenderness when eating or drinking. However, that tenderness or sensitivity should continue to improve over the course of that week as well.
If you reach the end of that week-long healing period and you are still feeling significant pain or have noticed no improvement, you should contact your dentist immediately. The root canal may not have fully taken care of your dental infection and you may require additional treatments or antibiotics to resolve the problem.
Now that you know a bit more about the recovery process from your root canal procedure, you can be sure that you are prepared for the healing process and know what to expect from it.
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