Hi Dana,

Yes, it is scary stuff because as you can see, it certainly doesn't look very healthy, does it?

Root canals are a common procedure and in most cases the patient is not properly informed of what happens to their tooth once it's been root canaled. Besides that, an actual photo is the best description. All root canaled teeth turn black from being deprived of blood. The longer the tooth is kept in the mouth, the blacker it becomes.

The purpose of placing the post is to give the non vital, fragile tooth some retention to hold the crown on. The irony is that drilling a post into a fragile tooth only weakens the tooth more. The end result is either a fracture in the tooth and/ or eventually the tooth breaks off at the gumline.

No, the post did not shift, that's the angle it was put in. This is a typical situation because it's impossible to see how far the post is going in when placing it. Sometimes the tooth is in such poor condition that the post actually splits the tooth in half.

Sometimes there are physical symptoms of pain or just something doesn't feel right after the post is placed. But other times the only symptom is when the infection shows itself as a fistula (a bump on the gum above/below a tooth) and/or it's picked up on an xray.

This patient had a large deep cavity and a filling placed. About 6 months later a radiolucent (black) area was seen on an xray indicating an infection. She had a root canal done and because the tooth was badly broken down from the original decay and in a fragile condition, a post and crown were done. She continued to have a radiolucent (black) area above the apex (root) of her tooth on her xrays for a little over 2 years. Finally, the tooth began to exude pus from beneath the gum and get loose, so the dentist finally said this should come out.

The intention of this thread is to inform people...... so they have a clearer idea of what is being done.

Bryanna