, root canal

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Years ago I made the mistake of letting my new dentist redo a couple of crowns that had root canals. While he was an excellent dentist, I did not realize that a tooth with a root canal becomes very brittle over the years, and the act of messing around with it, removing the old crown to put a new one on caused one of them to crack. About 8 years of trying to save the tooth with two apiectomys (sorry about this spelling), that is when they go in from the side of your gum to get at the bottom point of the root canal, where the infection usually is, cut the tip off and seal it up, then hope for the best. Finally had it pulled several years ago and am close to going for the bridge. After all of that I just couldn't take the thought of an implant and maybe having trouble with that too. Being obsessed with that tooth for 8 years was enough. Now, I'm going to go with the bridge soon. My advise is this: Let only an endodontist do your root canal. Do not have it done by the dentist. Some roots are easy but some are not and there can be surprises. It is definitely a job for a specialist. Lots of dentists do them, and maybe they can do them well, but I would not take the chance. It is much trickier and delicate than you would imagine. The filling they use these days is called gutta percha, (unless there's something new), and there is no way to tell if it could possible bother you or not. But, if you've got a root problem right now, it can't be worse either. There are dentists that use so called "natural" stuff, but personally, I don't buy it. You may want to look into it though. I know of only one person that goes to such a dentist, and her root canal failed almost immediately. Of course that's not a reason to be against it, one incident doesn't prove anything, but that's the only personal knowledge I have of it. If you happen to live in the Detroit area, I can give you the name of an excellent endodontist. Good luck,

Carole Garner