When to Choose Tooth Extraction over Root Canal?

When to Choose Tooth Extraction over Root Canal?

Mar 01, 2023

If you have a painful tooth and visit your dentist to examine what’s wrong, they will likely investigate the tooth by taking x-rays, besides conducting visual exams to look for cracks or fractures that might indicate infections inside it. The dentist determines you might benefit from a root canal only after looking at your dental x-rays to assess the severity of your condition.

The mention of getting a root canal will likely make you jump out of the dentist’s chair and wonder whether getting an infected tooth extracted is a better option. In some cases, when the dentist finds the tooth infection challenging to treat, they will recommend tooth extraction near you to safeguard your dental and overall health. However, in most cases, dentists try to preserve every tooth. Therefore, they will encourage you to receive root canal therapy to eradicate the infection from your tooth instead of removing the tooth itself.

When the dentist’s office near you suggests a root canal, kindly do not assume you can overlook the dentist’s advice and request them to remove your tooth because you become exposed to the consequences of tooth loss that are more painful than the infection in your tooth. Therefore the simple answer to your question is that you must wait for your dentist to advise tooth removal instead of deciding unilaterally that tooth extraction is optimal and a root canal is.

Root Canal Treatments Relieve Excruciating Toothaches

Severe toothaches generally result from infection or damage to the dental pulp, the soft inner core of your tooth. For example, the condition might result from an untreated cavity, damage to your tooth from repeated procedures, or untreated dental injuries that permitted bacteria to penetrate the tooth to infect the dental pulp.

If your tooth infection has aggravated, causing you to develop a dental abscess, or the condition has spread to your jawbone, which it inevitably does, making it challenging to treat and leaving you open to additional complications, the dentist will suggest extracting the tooth and replacing it with dental implants or bridges to close the gap between your teeth. However, if the infection hasn’t aggravated, you find it beneficial financially and physically to have the dentist in Royse City perform a root canal to preserve your natural tooth.

Root Canals Are Straightforward Procedures

Root canals are conservative to help save your natural tooth. Unlike the myths spread about the treatment causing immense pain or other health conditions, the therapy helps alleviate pain and prevents considerable expenditure on tooth replacement solutions.

When performing a root canal, the Royse city dentist removes all bacteria inside the affected tooth to eliminate the pain from the infection. You will not experience any discomfort when receiving the treatment but can expect some pain after the anesthesia wears off. However, the pain is comfortably manageable using prescription or over-the-counter pain relievers suggested by the dentist. You can recover from the process in about a couple of weeks before you restore the tooth, as the dentist recommended, by covering it with a dental crown.

When Is Tooth Extraction Preferable to Root Canal?

Dental procedures are not without risks, and even endodontic therapy includes some. Occasionally the dentist cannot remove all bacteria from the infected tooth, making another root canal essential later. Although such instances are rare, they can happen. In addition, your tooth becomes weaker after receiving a root canal, making it prone to fractures and breakage unless you restore it with a high-quality dental crown for functionality and aesthetics. In addition, some teeth, like your molars, have multiple canals that are challenging to detect and might need repeated root canals. Dentists suggest removing the tooth in the above circumstances only after assessing the tooth’s health, the spread of the infection, and other factors that might impact your overall health. Dentists recommend removing the tooth only after considering all factors if it is likely to affect your general health.

Root Canals or Extraction: Which Is Better?

Dentists confirm a root canal is optimal for treating an infected tooth and recommend extractions only when the tooth has suffered severe damage. However, they carefully analyze your oral health before making a treatment recommendation. Therefore when you receive a suggestion to relieve the severe toothache you experience in a specific tooth by receiving root canal treatment, you must consider the adverse effects of refusing treatment and prefer your dentist’s recommendation instead of considering tooth extraction.

Pleasure Dental performs root canals on many patients delivering successful results in helping them save their natural teeth. However, if you experience severe pain in a specific tooth, kindly do not hesitate to consult them for a recommendation about whether you need a root canal or must have the tooth extracted.

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