I have a root infected molar tooth should I have an implant

Q. I have a molar tooth which has been root filled & has had a crown for several years. An infection developed in the gum root which was treated by antiobiotics but my dentist is certain it will recur & has advised removal of this tooth. If I want an implant how long should I wait after extraction due to the posible presence of infection still being there? Can you give me any other advice as to the best way to go about this. Should my own dentist remove the tooth or should the cosmetic dentist do the whole job? Many thanks.

A. Dear K, thank you for your question.
Have you considered the posibilty of root canal treatment”>re- root canal treatment. If you are reluctant to loose the tooth the crown could be removed and a specialist could re do the root canal treatment and a new crown could be placed. Although having root treatment done again sounds cumbersome, if done properly by a specialist could prolong the life of the tooth for some time. This is an option that I always give my patients if there isn’t much decay in the tooth and if I think I can succesfully restore the tooth afterwards.

If you have decided that you do want to have the tooth extracted then definately go to a dentist that does implants for a consultation. The tooth need to be extracted in a certain way so as to preserve as much bone in the area as possible. The resulting socket will be cleaned out to make sure that there is no infected tissue. Synthetic bone crystals are then put into the socket and stiches are placed so that new bone can generate and the site can be strong enough to support an implant. This takes between 4 -6 months afterwhich the implant can be placed and then there is another healing time of 6 months for your bone to grow around the implant and stabilise it. A crown is placed on the implant after this. Implants can last a long time but there a cases in which the success is compromised. If you have diabetes, if you smoke or are immunocompromised in any way, the implant may not last as long but on the whole they have about a 95% success rate.

My advice would be to find an implant dentist and also ask to be referred to a rooth treatment specialist so that you know all your options before you make a decision

I hope this helps

Kind Regards
Dr Komal Suri

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Tags: dental implant, molar. tooth, root canal

This post was published on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 7:18 pmand is filed under Dr Suri's Answers, Experts Answers, Q. Dental Implants, Q. General dentistry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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