Thank you for your reply. Getting old is not for sissies, but it does beat the alternative. I just think of these tooth issues as expected losses in the process.

My cracked filling (tooth) did not have the expected black line on the root from the crack so the dentist opted to fill it a year ago. It just started to act up recently, but I think in my case it could be due to teeth grinding, since I stopped wearing a night guard. It seems to have settled down considerably since I popped in the guard these past few nights.

In regard to extraction, the issue is bone loss, but the dentist did not mention that I had significant bone loss at the site of my old extracted tooth nor did she mention that my other teeth had shifted. You might want to ask about these issues.

The good news is that in the not so far future we may be getting new teeth via stem cells.