Surprise Root Canal Part 1

For about a week and a half I have been having a lot of pain with my teeth. I had a crown put in about 6 months ago and I thought everything was fine. The pain was so bad that I had to take a couple Advil to ease the pain. I finally was able to get into the dentist today and he referred me to a specialist to see what was wrong. Both confirmed that I needed a root canal.
It is a two step procedure and today I completed phase one. For this phase, they gave me some local anesthetic and drilled down into the roots of my tooth. He used a carbide and diamond drill tip to do the work. Then, they clean out the root like the picture above and then they fill it with a temporary compound.

For my next visit in a month they will go back in and take the camera and dig a little deeper and clean things out a bit more. Then they put some rubber material and fill the hole. Hopefully it won't be too bad where they need to put a stainless steel rod. The nurse was explaining the procedure and she said that there are still some dentists that will use a paper clip instead of a rod and that it actually does work. It strengthens the tooth like rebar in concrete. She reassured me that this doctor did not do that.

My mouth is still numb but I'm not feeling any pain. I actually felt good enough to go to the original Topps and get the new habanero hot dog. I could barely chew it, but it hit the spot. Stay tuned for part 2 of the root canal which will happen in a month!