Perhaps you broke a tooth and didn’t have time to get it treated for a number of weeks; or maybe you have so much decay that a regular filling just isn’t going to do the trick. No matter what the background circumstances might be, if your tooth can’t be restored in a way that will make a standard filling work, then you might end up finding yourself faced with the following choice: Should you get a root canal, or should you part ways with your tooth by having it extracted?
Dr. Joseph Pizzarello is an experienced dentist at Pizzarello and Silvestro Family Dentistry, a full-service practice that has been serving the Stoneham, Massachusetts area since 1995, and according to him, some dentists believe that it’s usually best to do what it takes to save a tooth, which translates into performing a root canal instead of an extraction. However, he himself is not convinced that a root canal is always the way to go.
The benefit of root canal therapy is pretty evident – it allows a patient to hang on to his original tooth. Why is this important? The preservation of a tooth could help a patient retain a sense of “normalcy” in his mouth. An extraction, by contrast, has the potential to prompt teeth to shift and cause one’s bite to be thrown off. On the other hand, a root canal is not always a permanent solution. A tooth that has undergone root canal therapy can still have deep decay afterwards, and in some cases, a root canal can end up constituting a significant waste of money. Therefore, Dr. Pizzarello thinks that in certain situations, extraction might be the better option.
While tooth extractions do tend to go hand in hand with implants, according to Dr. Pizzarello, the “technology” behind implants has improved significantly over the past number of years. As such, more and more patients are being told that they are, indeed, candidates for implants; and the best time to do an implant is when a tooth is extracted. The extraction-implant combination offers the benefit of not potentially throwing one’s money away on an unsuccessful root canal. And speaking of money, implants these days are more affordable than ever before. In fact, Dr. Pizzarello insists that the fee for an implant and crown is similar to that of a root canal and crown. And since tooth extraction will offer the same type of sensation as root canal therapy, eligible patients have little to lose by opting for what is perhaps the less conventional approach – the extraction-implant combination. Furthermore, in Dr. Pizzarello’s experience, his patients, on a whole, seem to prefer the feeling of the implant over that of the root canal. Since a dental implant is fused to the bone, it can offer a more “solid” kind of fit that tends to sit better with even the pickiest of patients.
If one of your teeth has reached a point in which root canal therapy and extraction are its only two options, then talk to your dentist about the advantages and drawbacks of either approach. And if your dentist seems intently focused on pushing you into a root canal, then don’t be afraid to go out and get a second opinion on the matter before making a final choice. Remember, as a patient, you have every right to get a say as to what goes on inside your mouth; and while you probably won’t find yourself looking forward to either type of treatment, you deserve to at least feel comfortable with your ultimate decision.
