{"id":1106,"date":"2018-03-16T15:58:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T20:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aae.org\/patients\/?p=1106"},"modified":"2018-03-16T16:00:30","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T21:00:30","slug":"working-dispel-root-canal-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aae.org\/patients\/2018\/03\/16\/working-dispel-root-canal-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"Working to Dispel the Root Canal Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>by Jill Porter, <a href=\"http:\/\/einsteinperspectives.com\/working-dispel-myth-agony-root-canal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Einstein Perspectives<\/a><br \/>\n<\/em>You can forgive Frederic Barnett, DMD, for being disturbed by what U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said on CBS\u2019 60 minutes on Sunday\u2014and not about her controversial views on public education, either. What made Dr. Barnett cringe, as the Chairman of Dental Medicine at Einstein Healthcare Network, was what she said when asked about her contentious confirmation hearings: \u201cI\u2019ve never had root canal, but I can imagine that would be more pleasant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ah, yes, root canal. The universal go-to analogy for the worst possible experience life has to offer, as in: \u201cI\u2019d rather have root canal than (most hated activity ever.)\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just a perpetuated myth and it gets worse and worse,\u201d said Dr. Barnett, an endodontist, who remembers growing up listening to former Tonight Show host Johnny Carson frequently say the same thing. The fact is, he said: \u201cThe overwhelming majority of cases that are done now are painless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DeVos was famously eviscerated for inexperience and ignorance of issues concerning public education during her notorious confirmation hearings before a U.S. Senate committee. Her comparison of the hearings to root canal during a Sunday interview with Lesley Stahl reinforced the long-standing myth that it\u2019s only preferable to the worst experience of your life.<\/p>\n<p>Most of Dr. Barnett\u2019s patients had believed that myth. However, most of them say afterwards that the procedure didn\u2019t live up to the negative hype. He explains that the reputation of root canal may date back to a time prior to the universal adoption of local anesthesia. \u201cLike any field of medicine, dentistry over the years has evolved,\u201d Dr. Barnett said, noting that when he was a child, his dentist didn\u2019t use any anesthesia at all and \u201ceverything hurt.\u201d Not so any more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re sincerely not looking to torture anyone, contrary to what Betsy DeVos thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The exceptions are the occasions when a patient is already in so much pain that anything may make it worse. Or when anatomical quirks or the presence of severe inflammation and infection may prevent anesthesia from thoroughly numbing the tooth. \u201cBut most sophisticated endodontists know how to manage that type of situation,\u201d Dr. Barnett said, \u201cThere are supplemental anesthesia techniques that we would try to use to make it painless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Root canal treatment is necessary when the pulp of a tooth\u2014which includes nerves and blood vessels and other tissue\u2014has become inflamed or infected, usually from decay that has been left untreated, defective fillings or injury. A specially trained dentist\u2014an endodontist\u2014removes the inflamed or infected pulp tissue, disinfects the canal, and finally fills the canal with a biocompatible material. According to statistics on the website of the American Association of Endodontics, more than 15 million root canal treatments were performed during 2005-2006, the last year for which numbers are available. Presumably many more are performed now.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Barnett said he works \u201cone canal at a time\u201d to dispel the myth of the agony of root canal. And then along comes Betsy DeVos to reinforce it on national television. Dr. Barnett jokingly said he\u2019d consider inviting her to his dentist chair to experience a root canal, \u201cso she could compare it to her confirmation hearings afterwards and decide which was worse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re sincerely not looking to torture anyone, contrary to what Betsy DeVos thinks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reprinted with permission from <a href=\"http:\/\/einsteinperspectives.com\/working-dispel-myth-agony-root-canal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Einstein Perspectives<\/a><\/em>, \u00a9 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Education Secretary Besty DeVos compared her confirmation hearing to getting a root canal. Endodontist Dr. Fred Barnett corrects that misconception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-patient-news","8":"no-featured-image"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Working to Dispel the Root Canal Myth | American Association of Endodontists<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Education Secretary Besty DeVos compared her confirmation hearing to getting a root canal. Endodontist Dr. Fred Barnett corrects that misconception.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aae.org\/patients\/2018\/03\/16\/working-dispel-root-canal-myth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Working to Dispel the Root Canal Myth | American Association of Endodontists\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Education Secretary Besty DeVos compared her confirmation hearing to getting a root canal. 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