Hi Illana,
An apicoectomy has no long term purpose. It is a painful and invasive oral surgery procedure that does not take care of the infection because the tooth is what is causing the infection. So long as the tooth is present, the infection will be present. Dental implants have a high success rate when replacing a non infected tooth... a moderate success rate when they are replacing a root canaled tooth..... and a low long term success rate when replacing a root canaled tooth that has also had an apico. It all has to do with the pathology of the chronic infection in the tooth that has spread to the jawbone which was then surgerized (apico) without removing the source of the infection... the tooth.
Your instinct is your best judge.......
Bryanna
Quote:
Originally Posted by Illana
Bryanna, I really agree with your opinions and think you give great advice. I am in a similar situation. I had a tooth pulled on the left side of my mouth which caused some problems. Now I have a tooth that's causing problems on the other side (the exact same tooth on the opposite side). My choices are getting an apioectomy or extracting the tooth. At this point, I'm leaning towards the extraction. I think getting an apico will only probably buy me some time. Would you agree that pulling it and putting the money towards an implant is a good option?
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