Why does tooth filling kill nerves?

Some people go to the hospital to have their teeth filled because of cavities and are told that they need to kill the nerve first and then repair the tooth. Many patients actually do not understand why tooth fillings kill nerves. Is there any necessary connection here? In fact, normal tooth filling does not require killing the nerve, but if the tooth is severely damaged and the dental nerve has aged, it needs to be killed. Let's see how the doctor explains this.

Why do we kill the tooth nerve when filling a tooth? The doctor gave this explanation!

As we all know, sometimes filling a tooth requires killing the nerve of the tooth. In fact, this is to help you repair your teeth when needed, not for any other reason. If the degree of tooth damage and decay is relatively mild, it means that the caries is early caries. The tissue destruction of early caries is not serious. At this time, only a simple cavity filling treatment is needed to restore the "rotten" tooth. At this time, the filling does not need to kill the dental nerve.

However, since early-stage caries will not affect the patient's life, caries patients will not pay much attention to it. By the time caries patients feel uncomfortable, the disease has actually developed to a more serious stage. If you go to fill your tooth at this time, the dentist will kill the dental nerve. The bacteria have directly or indirectly infected the dental nerve inside. Once the dental nerve is infected, it cannot be recovered. Therefore, all infected parts, including the dental nerve, must be cleaned out before the filling can be done. Otherwise, simply filling a tooth will not allow the infected dental nerve to be cleared, and the bacteria will continue to ferment and infect inside without any way to eliminate it. This can cause inflammation and pain, leading to failure of the filling.

When our teeth become painful and inflamed, it means that our dental nerves are beginning to wither and age. Therefore, the dentist will remove the original dental nerve when treating the patient. Then do root canal treatment to completely eliminate the bacteria covering the periodontium. Therefore, don’t be scared when you hear that it will kill the tooth nerve, or refuse to have a filling because it may damage other teeth. The doctor has the final say on how to fill a tooth, as they are the most professional.

What many people don’t know is that the body’s teeth are actually hollow, and the hollow part is exactly where the pulp is. The main function of the dental pulp is to nourish the teeth and sense external temperature stimuli. There is often a certain distance from the outermost layer of the tooth to the pulp cavity, and this distance is not absolutely solid. However, it is filled with tiny "tubes" called dentinal tubules.

In clinical practice, many teeth have cavities due to caries, although the patient's pulp is not directly exposed. However, at this time, the bacteria have begun to penetrate into the pulp cavity from the small tubules of the dentin, which will eventually cause inflammation of the pulp and subsequent symptoms of toothache. In this case, once pulpitis occurs, it is essentially an irreversible process. At this time, patients can completely eliminate the inflammation and get rid of toothache through root canal treatment.