I went to my dentist and he said I had an advanced cavity on the inside of my tooth and he recommends a root canal treatment. The last root canal treatment he did for me was a disaster where the post kept falling out. Now I’m about to get that tooth extracted and replaced with a dental implant.
I wasn’t sure I trusted him with this diagnosis. In fact, I’m having trouble trusting him at all. So, I went to get a second opinion. This dentist also said there was an internal cavity and I could lose half the tooth. So, do I try another root canal treatment even though I’m not in pain? How do you even get a cavity on the inside of your tooth like that?
Deanna
Dear Deanna,
I’m glad you got the second opinion. If both dentists are saying the same thing, then you do have an internal cavity. This is caused by internal resorption. It’s actually pretty rare, but does happen. There are a few causes for this:
- Dental Trauma
- Chronic Inflammation of the dental pulp
- A tooth infection
They can be asymptomatic, so I’m not shocked that you weren’t feeling everything. The standard treatment for this is a root canal treatment. Above is an example a root canal treatment done for a patient with internal resorption. This was a repair that Dr. Fang-Chi Li did of the tooth pictured at the top of this post.
I can understand, given your previous experience that a root canal might not be something you want to try. There are root canal specialists which will likely do a better job than your dentist has done. If you still don’t want to try a root canal treatment, then a dental implant is the best tooth replacement.
If you’re having doubts about your current dentist, before you let him do your dental implant I’d check his post doctoral training in the implant procedure. This is highly advanced and there are countless horror stories from patients who had it done by an inexperienced and untrained implant dentist.
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