Hi Shelley,

You may not like what I'm about to say........ but in all fairness to you and everyone else who is reading this....... it's your right to be informed before you move ahead with re treating a root canaled tooth.

So WAIT before you give consent to go ahead and let them re root canal any tooth, please do some thorough research on the subject.

I know the last thing you want to do is lose your teeth, but please educate yourself on the risks associated with keeping infected teeth in your mouth verses extracting them.

ALL root canaled teeth are infected, period. There is no way to sterilze a tooth because the <millions> of curvy microscopic canals that contain necrotic nerve material cannot be accessed by any form of instrumentation, laser, medicaments ... nothing. The only canals that are <somewhat> debrided are the large canals that are <visual> by the eye or on a radiograph. Even these large canals are often missed because they can run parallel to other canals and cannot be picked up on an xray. During the debridment of the large accessible canals, the nerve material that is not removed is pressed into these microscopic canals causing even more inflammation. This is one, of several, reasons why people often have post operative pain immediately following the root canal procedure. It is the inflammation within these tiny canals called dentin tubules that is causing the pain. Some other things that frequently happen during a root canal procedure are...... the root (apex) of the tooth gets perforated thus pushing infected material or filling material into the bone, a file or reemer can be pushed through the side of a root into the bone, and a tooth can become fractured from all the instrumentation. Many times, these things go unnoticed until the patients complaining of post operative pain gets annoying (seriously!!) or if they are noticed at the time of the procedure, attempts are made to <patch> them up.

The immune system has a marvelous way of lessening symptoms of chronic inflammation which is exactly what happens after a root canal is done. However sooner or later, the immune system gets busy with something else and then these other areas of infection, in this case root canaled teeth, start to show signs of <failure>.

Root canals do not fail, your body does not reject them, they are a flawed procedure right from the get go! It makes no difference if the procedure is done by a specialist (endodontist) or a general dentist........ there is no way to access the dentin tubules in any tooth, in any person no matter what is done.

Every person has the right to choose what treatment is in their best interest. Perhaps the only way to know what that is, is to be well informed of the risks associated with your treatment choices.

Sometimes picture tells a thousand words.....
http://crobm.iadrjournals.org/cgi/co...ll/13/2/171/F1

The light gray areas with the darker gray lines surrounding the large canal is the dentin tubules. Too many to count!

Again, I know this is not fun stuff to read or think about. But my intention is to bring forth the truth of the matter so everyone has the opportunity to choose what is right for them. One could also choose to ignore it, that's ok with me too ~'.'~

If you would like to discuss this further or just tell us your thoughts.... we'd like to hear from you!

Bryanna