Before reading this article I want to make it clear that this article is for general public who is a layman to dentistry & not for academic purpose. Also I have tried my best to keep its language simple & understandable & not included any medical terminology. After all this article is for general purpose.
Many a times we felt mild pain or hot & cold sensitivity in our tooth. Upon consultation with a dentist we are advised to undergo root canal treatment or R.C.T. But some of us thought that the problem is not so severe which needed the painful (not actually) root canal treatment & why not the dentist perform the simple & cheap tooth filling or prescribe few medication for this problem. I personally faced such condition in my private practice frequently and thus decided to write on this topic.
Actually there are many factors which are analysed by your dentist before coming to the conclusion that you required root canal treatment like visually analysing the tooth for the amount of cavity, pain on hitting the tooth with an instrument, x-ray of the tooth (although not always required to simply conclude whether you need the root canal treatment or not), pain history & of course his/her own experience. Even if your pain is mild or occurs occasionally or just occurs once or twice in past & not now or even if there is no pain history you may need root canal treatment. Although the last mentioned condition is not much frequent but may occur if someone is taking antibiotics or painkillers for some other disease.
So leave this decision on your qualified dentist whether or not to go for root canal treatment. And yes!! the most important thing is that you should never ever go for self medication i.e, taking medicines from medical store on someone's advice other than a doctor. I have seen cases where a person simply took painkillers or some other medications from a nearby medical store and get relieved from dental pain (which is a symptom by your body that you need medical advice). Although the pain might (or might not) subsidies, but it could lead to a more dangerous condition of pariapical lesion (i.e, abscess or pus formation just below the tooth root) in future which is of course more difficult to treat than the root canal treatment itself & there is also a possibility of tooth loss.
Recently, also i have discussed this very important topic on one of my live show on T.V & will continue to do the same on every platform & every occasion i got in future.