Reasons to Work With An Endodontist Before Opting For Extraction
Posted on: 17 May 2017
If one of your teeth is in trouble and needs a lot of work, you might think extracting it would be the best route. You can just have it pulled and be done with it, right? Not quite.
An endodontist is a specialized dentist who works specifically with saving teeth. He or she uses advanced dental technology to save your natural teeth before opting for extraction. Here are three reasons why you should visit an endodontist first before resorting to something as drastic as an extraction.
Specialized Care
Endodontists go through additional training that focuses on saving the pulp of the tooth. If you can save the pulp, you can save the tooth itself and continue to have your own teeth in your mouth. That actually saves you a lot of time and money. Plus, you don't have to worry about problems with implants. For example, sometimes implants no longer match the color of your other teeth as your teeth age.
Protection for Your Other Teeth
Sometimes a tooth is just too far gone for anyone to save, and it does have to be extracted. If that's the case for you, have your endodontist inspect and monitor the teeth around that extraction site, both on the same jaw and the opposite jaw. Whatever caused the first tooth to be lost could be affecting the surrounding teeth to a lesser extent. An endodontist can inspect each tooth to see if there are signs of problems, and he or she can start to work on those teeth, giving them a much better chance of staying in good shape.
Financial Benefits
One other reason to attempt to save the natural tooth is that once the work is done and the tooth saved, you don't have to return to the endodontist. You still have to care for the tooth, but you don't have to worry about it having a shelf life. Dentures and even implants can wear out or need to be changed; for example, dentures can break, or they may start to fit oddly as you get older and as your teeth move around a bit more. That means spending more money in the long-term to have those artificial teeth. Save that natural tooth, though, and your financial outgo is limited fairly quickly.
Talk to an endodontist first; you can always opt to go back to your regular dentist and have the tooth extracted. But after hearing what the endodontist can do, you might not want to go back. Instead, you'll want to save your natural tooth. To learn more, visit a site like http://renovoendo.com.
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