Endodontic Retreatment

With the appropriate care, your teeth that have had endodontic treatment will often last as long as other natural teeth. Yet, a tooth that has received treatment may fail to heal or pain may continue to exist. Sometimes, the pain may occur months or years after treatment. If so, Endodontic Retreatment due to persistent infection or inflamation may be needed.

Once retreatment has been selected as a solution to your problem, the doctors will open your tooth to gain access to the root canal filling material. This material will be removed to enable access to the root canal. The doctors will then clean your canals and carefully examine the inside of the problematic tooth. Once cleaned, the doctors will refill and reseal the canals and place a temporary filling in the tooth.

At this point, you will need to return to your dentist within a few weeks in order to have a new crown or restoration placed on the tooth to restore full functionality.

Apicoectomy | An overview of endodontic surgery

Why would I need Endodontic Surgery? Generally root canal treatment and proper restoration are all that are needed to save teeth with injured pulps from extraction. Occasionally, these non-surgical procedures will not be sufficient to heal the tooth and your endodontist will recommend surgery. Endodontic surgery can be used to locate fractures or hidden canals that do not appear on x-rays but still manifest pain in the tooth. Damaged root surfaces or the surrounding bone may also be treated with this procedure. The most common surgery used to save damaged teeth is an apicoectomy or root-end resection.

What is an apicoectomy? An incision is made in the gum tissue to expose the bone and surrounding inflamed tissue. The damaged tissue is removed along with the end of the root tip. A root-end filling is placed to prevent reinfection of the root and the gum is sutured. The bone naturally heals around the root over a period of months restoring full function.

Cracked Teeth

Cracked teeth demonstrate many types of symptoms, including pain when chewing, temperature sensitivity or even pain on the release of biting pressure. It is also common for pain to come and go, making it difficult to diagnose the cause of discomfort.

Chewing can cause movement of the cracked pieces of your tooth, and the pulp within the tooth becomes irritated. At the same time, when biting pressure is released, the crack can close quickly resulting in sharp pain. Eventually, the pulp will become damaged and tooth will consistently hurt, even when you are not chewing. It is possible that cracks can lead to infection of the pulp tissue, which can spread to the bone and gum surrounding the problematic tooth. Your endodontist is an expert in diagnosing and treating cracked teeth.