Why Choose an Endodontist

A visit to your dentist may reveal the need for root canal therapy to save your tooth. Your dentist might even offer this treatment, so why choose an endodontist instead? 

Endodontists offer many more treatment options than simple root canals. Additionally, they have the extra years of schooling needed to provide additional insight into your treatment. 

Here are some of the best reasons for choosing an endodontist when you need specialized care for a tooth:

Are Endodontists the Same as Dentists?

First, to understand why choosing an endodontist has an advantage, you need to recognize how they distinguish themselves from dentists.

Training in Pain Mitigation

Part of the education that separates endodontists from dentists is the extra learning about pain mitigation. Because endodontists work inside the teeth, they have contact with the most sensitive areas of the mouth, tooth nerves, and the surrounding pulp.

Endodontists lean on their extra training in pain management to help patients feel more comfortable and keep them from moving during the procedure. Their advanced education allows them to master the fine art of applying local anesthesia to provide effective pain control throughout the procedure.

Thanks to this training, endodontists can painlessly perform procedures such as root canals and endodontic surgery. If you want to avoid discomfort during treatment, you should choose an endodontist for root canal therapy or other services.

Specialty Education on Treating Tooth Pulp and Roots

The roots inside the canals in each of your teeth are highly intricate. To learn about the anatomy inside the teeth, how to diagnose and treat conditions of it, and how to manage discomfort, endodontists take another two or three years to get their certificate. This specialization happens only after going to four years of dental school. Therefore, endodontists are highly educated experts in treating the inside of the teeth.

Endodontists have a uniquely varied education to tackle root canals, treat cracked or broken teeth, perform endodontic surgery, and retreat teeth that had previously received endodontic care.

Due to the years of learning required to obtain an endodontic certification, many doctors have traveled across the country or around the world during their education.

For example, at Innovative Endodontics, our founder Dr. Estes traveled worldwide, serving in the U.S. Navy as a dental officer. She later obtained her Endodontics certificate and masters at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Our Dr. Weightman has likewise traveled in earning her endodontic degree. She went to the University of Buffalo for her undergraduate. Afterward, Dr. Weightman attended Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, where she earned her dental degree and finished a year of residency at that hospital. After traveling across the country, she completed her endodontic studies at the UT Health Houston School of Dentistry. Before coming to the Charleston area, she performed her first root canal in Madagascar.

The extensive traveling and years of education provide endodontists with experiences that enrich their lives, training, and patient interactions.

Tools to Perform Endodontic Care Efficiently and Effectively

Endodontists require specialty instruments to see and treat tooth pulp. Therefore, they typically invest in technology that dentists may not regularly need.

Seeing inside the tooth is essential to endodontics, mainly because the areas treated inside the tooth are so small. Therefore, Innovative Endodontics uses high-tech instruments that allow our doctors to peer inside the teeth. These tools include Zeiss operating microscopes and the J. Morita cone beam 3-D imaging system.

More Experience in Endodontic Treatments

Each week, the average dentist will perform one or two root canals. However, an endodontist, for whom root canal therapy is part of their expertise, may do up to 25 of these procedures.

Wouldn’t you rather have a doctor with five times more weekly experience perform your root canal? If so, you should see an endodontist for your root canal therapy.

Variety of Services Offered to Save Teeth

Dentists may occasionally perform root canals, but they do not have a specialty certificate in the field. Endodontists have the skills, tools, and education to provide their patients with a greater variety of services. Endodontic treatments include root canal therapy, apicoectomy and other surgeries, and endodontic retreatment. With this variety of treatment options at their disposal, endodontists treat cracked teeth to save teeth that a dentist might extract.

Endodontists’ work with the pulp of the tooth makes them the ideal service providers for patients who want treatments that let them keep their natural teeth.

Make Innovative Endodontics Your Choice for Endodontic Care in the Charleston Area

When you need endodontic care, whether a root canal or cracked tooth treatment, contact us at Innovative Endodontics. Our doctors have the advanced training and skills to provide you with top-notch care in Charleston. With good endodontic care, you’ll feel comfortable throughout your visit and have a partner to help preserve your natural teeth.