Q.
Hi Dr Moore. I had a rather freakish accident on christmas eve a couple of years ago where a shoe from a collegue of mine ended up smashing into my front teeth from very close range. This resulted in the damaging and loosening (almost knocking out) of one of my 2 central teeth in my upper jaw. I had emergency dental treatment at the hospital where the loose tooth was attached to its neighbour and allowed to heal naturally. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly this now means that the tooth is crocked. Moreover the tooth became infected started to die. Since then i have had a root filling carried out by my local dentist. On a recent visit to the dentist i conplained that the tooth was again becoming uncomfortable and the dentist informed me that the filling had failed as the infection had returned and the root was wasting away. He told me that the best thing to do was to see a specialist privately (i’m an NHS patient currently) and have another root filling. My problem with this is that i can’t really see any point in having a damaged, crocked and TWICE capped tooth filled only for it to not look very nice. I have in the past had both my central upper teeth capped and have been looking into having both these teeth replaced with implants. The trouble is that it seems to be a mine field when it comes to cost, proceedure and healing time. Could you please shead some light on this for me? Many thanks,