If the tooth has to be extracted then the only alternative would be an implant or a bridge, right? I am not interested in this wackadoo root canal business nor the apica-root scraping routine. Both procedures sound like something right out of a CIA/NSA anti-terrorist interrogation training manual right next to the chapter on how to waterboard someone til he or she confesses. At 66 and with four cardiac stents I'm gambling each time I sit down in the dental chair it seems to me. Infection. That's all I need to deal with. And here I was thinking it would be a piece of cake to get a few teeth crowned and be on my merry way.