A parital root canal is when only a part of the full endodontic treatment is done. It's called a pulpectomy. The word pulp is the name for the tissue inside the tooth canals. The word ending -ectomy means to cut something away, just like an appendectomy cuts your appendix away. Only removing a part of the nerve is almost never a good thing and is almost always done because the patient has limited funds and can not afford a full root canal.

          A pulpotomy is a parital root canal that is done for baby teeth. In this procedure, the top of the root canal located inside the crown portion of the tooth is removed. The tooth nerve in the roots of the baby tooth are left intact and alive. Eventually the baby tooth falls out along with what is left of the baby roots.

         Years ago in Asia and the old Soviet Union, a dentist would often do a parital root canal by only treating one or two roots of a three rooted tooth. This looks strange on an x-ray but in many cases it worked and kept the patient out of dental pain. However, in the US today, we believe that all of the tissue inside all of the roots must be completely removed.

         Most dentists do not like doing a parital root canal. This procedure temporarily gets rid of the root canal pain but the pain will usually return again. The patient will then get mad that the pain has returned and insist that the dentist do the full root canal even though the patient has only paid for part of the root canal. This is not good business nor good treatment so most dentists try and avoid this situation. If you need root canal therapy or root canal retreatment, Dr. Padolsky and/or Dr. Smith would be happy to evaluate you. Call 404-874-7428 for your appointment.