Ok I have two abscessed teeth. I have been advised by my dentist to either have a double root canal or to have them extracted. Has anyone had a successful root canal? Do they hurt? I am in lots of pain right now because of them, I really don't want to get them pulled but the root canals are going to cost me $1400 and that is with my dental insurance. Its $100 to get them pulled. Just for the record its my top left molars that are affected. So if anyone reading this can give me some advice I would appreciate it. :)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
This is a blog detailing my journey from Deaf into (hopefully) hearing and my dealing with a piece of technology called a cochlear implant.
2 comments:
Been there, unfortunately. When you say your top two molars, do you mean the very back ones? Those have been toughies for me. I have bad teeth. And I've been to a dentist maybe twice in the past 15 years. Each time, I had tons of work done. I've had four root canals (one was not my fault though, my orthodontist accidentally killed a bottom front tooth) and I've had a tooth pulled. It was beyond saving with a root canal.
Obviously dental work is never fun. But a root canal is honestly not much worse than having cavities filled. You will get numbed either way, which is the worst part, in my opinion. Actually, the numbing for my extraction was much worse, because he had to stick a needle in my soft palate. Ouch! But back to root canals. After you are numb, your job is basically to hang out and keep your mouth open. As with cavities, if you feel something, the dentist should stop and give you more numbing stuff. The crown is the easy part. He'll just glue it on there or whatever.
A couple of dentists have advised me to do root canals rather than extractions. They said that I want to keep as many teeth as I can (I'm only 31 and too young to be moving toward dentures!). Also, and this influenced me more, your top and bottom teeth kind of keep each other in stasis. If you don't have a tooth on the top, the bottom tooth that used to meet it will begin to move up. It takes many years, but it will eventually move up enough that the entire enamel is above the gum line and the weaker tooth stuff underneath is exposed. That makes it prone to cavities. It's tough to seal, since it's at the gum line. That convinced me to give it a try.
I would say that the bottom line is:
-Pros for extraction: quicker, cheaper
-Cons for extraction: less teeth (obviously :), possible problems with other teeth
-Pros for root canals: you still have all your teeth, which is a good thing
-Cons for root canals: they take longer and are so expensive
Sorry this was so long-winded, but hopefully it helped. I hope you feel better soon. With either option, you will feel so much better within a day or so. :D
Thanks for the help Annie. I am just going to have the root canals done I think. They are my very back ones yes. Right now I am dealing with the abcess and doing antibiotics and vicoden. :) Fun times. I am only two years older than you and I do not want to get dentures yet!
Post a Comment