Hi Mark,

I'm in the dental field and can clarify what it means to have an infected root canaled tooth.

The infection is actually inside of the tooth and it has spread into the jawbone. This is a common problem with root canaled teeth because the infected nerve material cannot be cleaned out of the canals completely which means there will always be some degree of infection inside of the tooth irrelevant of the number of times the tooth is root canaled. So a re treatment will not "clean out the root canal" or remove or decrease the infection in the tooth.

Sometimes a surgical treatment called an apicoectomy is suggested. This procedure is very painful, very costly, and will not remove or decrease the infection inside of the tooth.

The source of the infection is the tooth which means the infection will be present as long as the tooth is present. The only sure way to remove the infection is to remove the to remove the tooth.

I know this is not the news that you want to hear..... but I hope this information is helpful to you.

Bryanna