Every chapter

One tooth problem, taken apart: the appointment, the days after it, the crown that usually follows, the second attempt when the first does not settle, and the point at which a toothache is not a toothache any more.

• Anaesthetic and Sedation for a Root Canal

  Local anaesthetic is the default and is included in the procedure — it has no separate line on any schedule we read. Sedation is a different thing entirely, billed by the quarter hour, and it is worth knowing what that costs before you say yes.

• Do You Need a Crown After a Root Canal?

  On the schedules that price both, the crown is roughly half of the total bill — and the endodontists' own guidance says it depends mostly on which tooth it is. Back teeth generally get one; front teeth often do not.

• Endodontist or General Dentist: Who Does Root Canals

  Both do. An endodontist is a specialist with at least two further years of training after dental school, and by their own association's figure only about three per cent of dentists are one.

• When a Root Canal Fails: Retreatment, and What It Costs

  Redoing the treatment is a normal, coded, priced procedure — and on both schedules that list it, it costs more than doing it the first time. Here is what the codes say and what the options are.

• Lowering Your Odds of Ever Needing a Root Canal

  There is no method that guarantees it, and anyone selling one is selling something. What there is: a window in which early decay can be stopped, and a set of dull habits that keep teeth inside that window.

• Pain After a Root Canal: What Is Ordinary and What Is a Phone Call

  Soreness for a few days is what the sources describe. Severe pain, pressure, or pain still going after a few days is the line where every source we read says to ring the person who did the treatment.

• Root Canal Side Effects, and the One That Is Not Real

  The short-term effects published sources describe are soreness, sensitivity and a tooth that is easier to break until it is restored. The long-term one you will find most often online — that root canals make you ill — comes from a theory the research has discredited.

• Root Canal or Filling: What Decides Which One You Get

  Whether the decay has reached the pulp. That is the whole difference, and it is not something you can feel from the outside — but it changes the bill by an order of magnitude.

• The Signs That Send People for a Root Canal, and Why None of Them Settle It

  Published patient sources list six or seven signs. Every one of them also belongs to conditions that need something else entirely — which is why this chapter will not tell you what you have.

• Tooth Pain: When It Cannot Wait

  Some tooth problems are appointments and some are emergencies, and published health services draw the line in specific words. This chapter gives you those words first and the explanation afterwards.