I’ve had two. If there’s an infection and the dentist get’s a person on antibiotics several days beforehand, then the procedure has a pretty limited amount of pain. Usually less pain than a typical filling. As others have pointed out, the local anesthetic shots are often the gardest parts which aren’t that bad. Don’t avoid the local anesthetic. If you need more, speak up. Basically, if you can handle a few seconds of being pinched then a root canal is no problem. There are also bad dentists out there.