dwnjef,

As I said.... to keep an infected or root canaled tooth in your mouth means to keep the infection. Bacteria travels through the vessels, nerves and the bone and other teeth can become infected. It is not unusual for people to start out with one infected tooth, have it root canaled, then the next one, then the next one and so on. I have seen countless patients who have had all of their teeth root canaled across their entire arch and it all started with one tooth.

There is no ideal answer regarding the removal of #13 at this time. The reason being is that the removal can disturb the healing of the #14 site. At the same time, if you leave #13 or you root canal it, you are keeping an infected tooth which is next to a dental implant. Yes, the bacteria can spread to #12 but it can also spread to the implant site as well.

In retrospect, if #13 had been diagnosed sooner, then it and # 14 could have been removed at the same time. Which would have avoided this complication that you now face. Tooth #13 did not become infected over night. So somebody should have picked up on that infection sooner than they did.

You may be talked into root canaling #13 simply because the surgery to remove it may compromise the dental implant. But as you already know, root canals do not cure infected teeth. So an rc is not the answer.

I'm sorry you are in this predicament. Your dentists, like many dentists, should have been more thorough and more informative about #13.

Perhaps a consultation with an oral surgeon about the removal of #13 and what his opinion is regarding the effects it could have on the healing of the dental implant might be helpful.

I hope this information was helpful to you.

QUOTE=dwnjef;1087590]Thank you for your fast response...At this point in the game, I have the implant placed and am getting ready for the abutment and crown to be placed, but I still have the infection in tooth # 13. Would you advise that I speak with my implant dentist about removing tooth #13 and having a second implant placed there...thus, skipping the seemingly next recommended step of a root canal in tooth # 13?

Also, would you delay the abutment and crown on the implant until the fate of tooth #13 has been decided? I am scared that I will either root canal or remove tooth # 13, then I'll have an infection in tooth # 12, then # 11....How can I get this to end??[/QUOTE]