Hi. First I'd like to thank Bryanna for being so informative, I've lurked this subforum for a while and have learned so much from her.

I'm concerned about one of my teeth (top premolar, tooth #12) that had a root canal treatment more than 5 years ago. It was badly infected but ever since the root canal I had no problems with it. Now I know that root canals are never 100% and the infection can always come back. This tooth broke a couple of weeks ago as I was eating something hard, and the filling also got loose. I went to a dentist, she redid the filling with a post and recommended I get a crown. I agreed to it before having done thorough research. It was stupid on my part also because I've only ever gotten one crown before on another root canal, and it failed due to the infection coming back as an abscess under the root. I had that one extracted.

The crown isn't in yet, I have a temporary on at the moment. The procedure costs $800 and I keep feeling like it's a waste of money. But at the same time, I'm 23 and I would feel horrible if I also had this one extracted, I wouldn't be able to smile due to its location and I don't want an implant in me. I brush and floss daily but that can only do so much.

My question is, how likely is it that a root canal infection will come back? Can I request an x-ray of this new filling before cementing the crown? I don't know if I could do that at no cost. And also, do crowns make it more likely that an abscess forms again or does that depend on how well the dentist re-filled my tooth? I'm expecting the absolute worst.