Question:
What is the substance that is heated red hot and used to fill the canal?
Is it metal or some kind of plastic?
Answer:
Heated gutta percha is often used to fill root canals. It is not heated
"red hot." It is warmed to soften it enough to adapt to the minute
variations in the root canal walls, and to help it be properly
compacted.
When my dentist did my root canal he had his assistant hold a small torch
and he heated a very thin piece of something until it glowed. Is this
material a metal, plastic, or?
Just guessing here--it is probably a gutta percha spreader being heated
to soften and compress the gutta percha. Warm gutta percha is a filling
material whose use was pioneered largely by the late Herb Schilder, who
you can probably google for information on. These days there are more
convenient instruments for doing this--such as the System B unit, which
is an electric cannula. But the idea is the same--to plasticize the
gutta percha and achieve better adaptation of the material to the walls
of the canals.
ll root cancel fillings have the potential to casue bad health. This is
because, althought the nerve has been removed, bacteria still colonise
in the minute tubules of a tooth. These bacteria produce toxins which
enter the body causing potential harm.
An area of residual infection which is left under the gum, usually
following, but sometimes a long time after an extraction can cause
problems.
Symptoms can be coincided with the energetic links to the body as well
as localised problems.
