No, It does not need to be a painful procedure. Before any root canal treatment is carried out patient must be well anaesthetised, so they do not feel any discomfort during the procedure. Sometimes, when there is a severe acute pain with a tooth, it may take time to fully anaesthetize the patient and higher doses of local anaesthetic may be needed. Without a doubt, we can get patients fully anaesthetized prior to the carrying out a root canal treatment. Different forms of local anaesthesia are available.