Infections to the soft inner pulp within a tooth among adults often elicit a dentist’s recommendation for root canal treatments. However, if children are affected by a similar problem, the pediatric dentist near you prefers to perform a pulpectomy or nerve treatment as the best option for saving the primary tooth of the child. Removing the entire pulp from a primary tooth by performing a pulpectomy, the dentist tries to relieve the infection’s pain and prevent a complicated extraction.

Dental Pulp Explained

All children’s teeth have a sensitive inner dental pulp functioning as the living part of the tooth. Dental pulp exists in both children’s and adult’s teeth. The dental pulp is soft and comprises nerve endings and blood vessels essential to nourish the tooth and keep it healthy. In addition, the dental pulp helps provide the tooth’s sensory function by detecting hot and cold temperatures and circulating nutrient-rich blood to the tooth. Finally, an essential role of the pulp is to produce dentin to strengthen and support the tooth.

Why Do Children Need a Pulpectomy?

Your child may require nerve treatment near me (pulpectomy) if they have an untreated cavity in their mouths neglected for too long, allowing the dental pulp within the tooth to become infected. Tooth decay also develops under dental fillings to eventually damage the dental pulp. As a result, your child experiences toothache and pain besides tooth sensitivity to hot and cold temperatures.

The child may require nerve treatment in Houston, TX, because they have sustained dental trauma or injury causing their teeth to crack or break. Most cracks and breaks are not severe to require nerve treatment. Unfortunately, if your child has damage sufficiently deep to expose the inner pulp to cause severe pain and sensitivity, the child needs to undergo a pulpectomy. Pulpectomies are particular to children’s primary teeth because their roots are slightly different from permanent teeth.

The Pulpectomy Procedure

When starting a pulpectomy procedure, the pediatric dentist Houston, TX, provides your child local anesthesia to numb the affected tooth and the surrounding tissue. Next, a rubber dam projects the exposed tooth to keep it isolated from bacteria and saliva. Next, the dentist removes tooth decay and inner dental pulp using flexible dental instruments before disinfecting the insides of the tooth.

The canals in your child’s tooth are filled with medicated material besides closing the area with a therapeutic dressing. The material used to fill the canals is biocompatible and is absorbed by the body after the baby tooth falls out. After completing the nerve treatment, the dentist removes the rubber dam, and you can leave for home with your child immediately after. Your child will experience some discomfort and sensitivity for a few days. However, the Houston pediatric dentist recommends painkillers to help the child overcome the problem.

Why Perform Nerve Treatment Instead of Expecting the Tooth?

Do you think the primary tooth in your child’s mouth will fall off by six or seven, and why should you invest in nerve treatments recommended by Urbach pediatric dentistry? It will help if you understand the primary teeth in your child’s mouth have multiple purposes. First, extracting primary teeth makes it challenging for your child to eat and speak. Second, the child may experience tough chewing to increase the chances of choking because your child cannot chew food properly and must swallow large chunks.

The primary teeth of your child also affect how the permanent teeth emerge into their correct positions. Therefore, you must consider primary teeth as markers for the permanent teeth to erupt through the gums. Removing one or more primary teeth results in severe orthodontic problems, including malocclusion, crowding, and misalignment. Instead, suppose you let your child receive nerve treatment from the pediatric dentist Houston, TX. In that case, you enable them to retain their confidence and self-esteem because all their primary teeth are present in their mouths instead of losing them to extractions prematurely.

Is There Any Way to Prevent Nerve Treatments among Children?

The optimal way to avoid a pulpectomy is to prevent tooth decay and infections from affecting your child’s mouth. The goal is easily achievable by supervising your child when brushing and flossing their teeth, keeping a close watch on their diet, and taking them to the pediatric dentist near you for six-monthly exams and cleanings. The practices you adopt for your child’s dental hygiene ensure that dentists detect cavities in their mouths early and treat them with minimally invasive procedures like dental filling instead of recommending nerve treatments after the dental pulp becomes infected.