Learning to Manage Your Dental Problems

3 Ways Your Dentist Can Try And Save A Tooth To Prevent Extraction

2 September 2015 by Charlotte Beck

Natural teeth have several benefits over artificial teeth, which is why your dentist will try to save an ailing tooth in any way possible before recommending an extraction. The potential treatments vary depending on the nature and severity of the damage to the tooth. There are some circumstances, such as pulp and root death, where an extraction is unavoidable. But there are more ways to save your teeth than you might realize.

Here are three ways your dentist can try and save a tooth to prevent extraction.

Root Canal Therapy and Crown

The root canal in the center of the tooth can become infected and/or damaged, which threatens the life of the tooth. Left untreated, this damage can kill both the pulp and the roots and require extraction.

Your dentist might be able to fix this problem using root canal therapy, or RCT. In RCT, your dentist will drill an opening into the top of your tooth to access the sensitive pulp material inside the canal. Using special thin tools, your dentist will scrape the damaged pulp carefully out of the canal and then wash the canal out with antiseptic solution. A bio-safe cement is injected into the canal to keep infection from coming back up the canal.

The opened tooth is then sealed off with a dental crown, which is an artificial tooth cap that covers either the top or the entire exterior of the natural tooth.

Apicoectomy

Did you already have a root canal in the tooth but infections keep returning? The infection might be taking hold in the root apex buried deep below your tooth and into the jawbone. The apexes are hard to reach during a traditional root canal so a lingering infection there can cause your symptoms to flare up again.

Your dentist can solve this problem with an apicoectomy. The procedure involves cutting into the jawbone to access the root apex or apexes. The apexes are then snipped off, and the remaining root is sealed off to prevent infection from coming back through the gums and up into the root canal.

Root Resection  

Sometimes a root is too damaged to save. But if that root is on a tooth that has more than one root, this doesn't mean the tooth will need to be extracted. Instead, your dentist could order a root resection.

The procedure requires the dentist to cut through the jawbone and remove the damaged root, which can leave an empty cavity inside the bone. If the root was sizeable, you might need a small bone graft to patch the jawbone back up before the gums are left to heal over the area.

For more information, contact Family Dentistry Of Woodstock or a similar location.

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