What's the difference...?

Question

What's the difference between a root canal and a filling? Like what would make a dentist do a root canal instead of a filling?

Answer 1

Having undergone both of the above, I can tell you that a filling is when the tooth enamel and tooth in general are damaged, leading toward the root/nerve but not yet touching it.  The dentist will drill off the rotting part of the tooth and fill it back in to stop it from going any further.

A root canal is when the nerve is also damaged.  Thus, the dentist must remove the nerve of the tooth, fill in that hole, as well as the rotted part of the tooth.  So the answer is, if the dentist does a root canal, the nerve is damaged.  Hope that helps :-)

Answer 2

When you have left your bad tooth to rot into your head, thats when you need a root canal.  A filling is more for cavities that are on the surface, they are not so deep or old that they require a root canal.

Answer 3

the cavity has reached the root so a filling isnt going to be enough so the next step is to do a root canal in which he/she removes the nerve's roots inside the tooth

Answer 4

When the tooth is pretty much going to be coverd in feelings a root canal is neccesary.  It will also require a cap. Like on one of my teeth, i just kept getting cavaties and after a while he gave me a root canal and capped it.  Basically the root is gone, so there is no life in the tooth. Something like that.