Dental Pulp Conditions

The pulp is the innermost substance of a tooth. It is the place where the blood vessels, nerves and living connective tissues are. Like any other part of you, it can be injured and it can also heal. Pulps come in three basic conditions: Healthy, Stressed and Diseased.

The Healthy Pulp

The healthy dental pulp can withstand a lot of trauma. It will respond to any stimulation that exceeds its tolerance by hurting. Any pulpal over-stimulation causes discomfort. The pain you get from a healthy pulp telling you to back off is short and sharp. It goes away almost immediately when the stimulation is withdrawn. If you don’t over-stimulate a healthy pulp, you won’t even know it’s there.

The Stressed Pulp

Just as a person can be physically, emotionally or spiritually stressed, and not be actually sick, so can a dental pulp. But a person in this condition - or a dental pulp in this condition - is more susceptable to breakdown and disease than a healthy person or dental pulp. Unbalanced biting pressure, decay, deep or leaky or overly large fillings, cracked teeth, over-exposure to heat or cold, dental procedures and actual trauma are examples of things rhat stress dental pulps.

A stressed pulp may give you some discomfort or it may not. Thre discomfort of a stressed pulp will usually be a sharp reaction to mild or moderate stimulation that lasts a few minutes and gradually goes away. Some times a stressed pulp will ache slightly when you chew on the tooth. It will generally be more sensitive to things than a healthy pulp. When we treat a tooth that has a stressed pulp there is a potential for that pulp to be pushed "over the edge"and become irreversably damaged. We can not always know this in advance. The pulp tissue may actually break down and die in such a situation. This process can take days, weeks, months or even years.

The Diseased Pulp

When a pulp is stressed or injured beyond its ability to heal it will begin to die. This will also happen if the pulp tissue becomes infected, as when decay enters the pulp. Pulp death can take place gradually or very quickly. Gradual pulp death can happen with or without symptoms and is usually discovered on routine x-ray examination. Rapid pulp death is almost always painful. The pain is deep, steady, throbbing and constant. You will really want to have help promptly. The treatment for diseased and dying pulps is to remove the pulp from the tooth. This is normally done by simply removing the pulp and leaving the rest of the tooth behind. In certain situations, the only way to remove the pulp is to remove the entire tooth. We try to avoid that.

The diagnosis of a stressed or diseased pulp can be tricky. If you need help, we will do all we can to make a good decision with you about what is happening and what to do about it.

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