Bryanna,

A week ago I woke up with severe pain right around a former root canal several years ago. The dentist referred me to an Endodontist. In addition to pain meds, I was originally prescribed Penicillan and it did nothing for my pain (and calm down the infection). I'm currently about 48 hours in to Clindamycin and it has brought my pain down from a 10 to a 9.

Anyway, apparently I have an infection in a cavity below the root of my tooth. The Endodontist said my tooth is very healthy and the roots are fine (even though they have had a root canal and crown). He wants to do an Apicoectomy once the infection is brought under control in about 10 days. From what I am reading here, should I just skip the years of aggravation and get it extracted and an implant put in? The Apicoectomy procedure is expensive, painful and looks like it is bound for more problems down the road.

I'm relatively young (35) and the teeth (and I would assume bone) around the area should be healthy. Should I just have the tooth pulled? It is tooth #19, so it's pretty darn vital to chewing food.

I've already missed a week of work and I'm of the mindset to pull it and get an implant and move on. Haven't researched that yet, but it just sounds better.