Hello. I am a patient. These are older xrays . Since taken, tooth 12 has been root canal treated and requires crown lengthening. However, the decay of tooth 13 has made half of tooth break off. (for ease of reference, tooth #14 has a post and a crown). I was told by the dentist that we can do root canal plus post and crown. When I went for tooth 12 crown lengthening consult, the periodontist stated that he can do both 13 and 12 as crown lengthening and no need for root canal. These doctors all work in different offices, but refer to each other and neither wishes to definitively state what is the better treatment. Generally I lean to more conservative treatment, but I am at a loss. Please help? If I need one more consult, should it be with a dentist or periodontist? Periodontist was stating 4-5 millimiters for #12 and 3 mill or so for #13. HELP!!!
Hello,
This is a forum for dentists only. It is not for patients with questions vis-à-vis treatment options.
Your personal dentist is the one for you to be asking these questions with. Trust your dentist
I would trust the dentist that will be removing any decay. If it’s decay’d to the nerve and/or there isn’t much tooth to hang onto, the general dentist may feel he/she needs the post/build-up to have something to hang onto for the crown.
Sorry for late reply. Hope i can help you understand your proposed treatment by ur GP and periodontist better. By now probably your problem has been solved. But for your clarification. a root canal treatment (RCT) is performed to prolong your teeth instead of removing it. if the tooth can be restored and crowned after the RCT. If you dont have enough tooth structure to support a crown then a post and core is needed to build up enough tooth structure to support a crown. Sometimes you will need crown lengthening (CL) because the decay or fracture is too close to bone or tooth crown is too short to support a crown so we need to lower the bone by CL to create more tooth crown to support a prosthetic crown. You already don’t have a choice to have a conservative treatment. tooth #12 RCT or ext are your only treatment choices. you delayed the decay for too long causing the decay to reach the nerve on tooth #12. and tooth #13 has a huge composite filling which compromised the crown. eventually it was going to fracture anyway. #13 probably just needed a crown. When the periodontist perform CL. most likely he will remove bone from distal of #12 and mesial of #13. Thats why he states he can do both #12, 13 as CL. He’s correct. #13 probably dont need RCT. but #12 definitely needed the RCT. There are not better treatment because RCT and CL are for different purposes. Both treatments are needed for you if you want to save your tooth #12 and #13.
