Originally Posted by Bryanna

Hi cpotsky,

It is not uncommon for a dentist to tell a new patient that they have cavities, especially when that person's dentist has retired. Which usually indicates that the dentist was an older person and perhaps not as diagnostic as maybe they once had been. This is a common occurrence and people of course will question the new dentist because they trusted their original one.

In your case, based on your description of what occurred with this tooth there was evidently a deep and/or moderate cavity and/or a fracture in this tooth that had not been diagnosed by your original dentist. The new guy attempted to remove the cavity and restore the tooth and may or may not have realized it was fractured. However, the newest dentist who did the root canal tooth may have known it was fractured when he did the rc because he could have gotten abnormal movement with the tooth when instrumenting it. Taking the tooth out of occlusion is just a temporary measure and have no long term benefit when a tooth is fractured. At that point there was no reason to crown it because a root canaled tooth with a fracture is beyond repair.

The back and forth with the dentist who extracted the tooth indicates she probably does not perform too many extractions and she may have caused some splintering of the buccal ridge along the gum line. That can occur when either the tooth is badly infected and/or if too much force or an improper technique was used to remove the tooth. Sometimes the splintered bone will fill in and sometimes little pieces of it will protrude from the gum and either fall out on their own or need to be removed. They can cause the area to feel quite sore and achey. In the future if needed, it's usually best to see an oral surgeon for tooth extractions especially root canaled teeth.

It is not wise to have your teeth professionally cleaned until the extraction site closes because debris can end up in the socket. In the meantime it is important to keep your mouth very clean, by brushing, flossing, and tongue scraping. What did the oral surgeon have to say about the sinus opening?

Bryanna