Saving the Tooth – Dr. Shanaz
“Help doc! I don’t want to remove the tooth, is there any way you can save it? – sounds familiar?
We deal with a lot of these questions! Truth be told, every single dentist would definitely want to try to save the tooth before removing it. It’s just a matter of how much original tooth structure is left.
Take Mr. Ali for example, he came with a huge hole on his tooth that actually had not caused any pain for a long time, but he knew he had to get it fixed before it started to hurt, or worse, break even more!
I took one look at it and thought this was going to be a challenge, but I love challenges! After explaining to Mr. Ali that he’ll be needing a root canal treatment and subsequently a crown to save his molar tooth, he agreed and gave me the opportunity to give a little life back to his broken tooth.
Mr. Ali understood the need for the root canal treatment as there was already a current infection in the roots itself that actually was spreading to the bone that held the tooth. This leads to a lot of pus build up in the bone and can lead to greater problems and risks such as severe bone defects, mobility of the tooth or worse, huge facial swelling!
Luckily Mr. Ali came at the right time!
It took me many many visits to get the root canal treatment done as it was a severely carious tooth that extended way below his gum margin. That required extra time to remove all the diseased and soft tooth structure, to build it back nicely before attempting to treat the roots and the infected canals.
Once the walls were rebuilt, I went ahead and cleaned each root canal. As you can see, he had 3 canals to treat in this tooth. After making sure of the number of canals, I proceeded to clean them thoroughly with the many materials used in our clinic. Mr. Ali was a star of a patient! No complaints whatsoever and sometimes even slept throughout the whole treatment. (most probably because it didn’t hurt! Hehe)
Once everything was cleaned. I filled up the then already clean root canals and filled them up with a filling material.
Building up the tooth back was now the only thing left to do before prepping his tooth for a crown that would ensure the root-canal-treated tooth could last for years and years.
If ever you find yourself with a similar problem, or that your dentist has advised you to get a root canal treatment done for your tooth: Don’t wait any longer! Get it done as soon as you can because the longer you wait, the harder it is to save the tooth!
Don’t let your teeth rot to a point we have to remove them! Come visit us when you can for that yearly check up – Dr. Shanaz