Curved roots- extraction..

[SunshineMoon]

Hi everyone. I am new to the forum and so glad to have found you all.
I have bad dental anxiety but have managed to have fillings, root canals and two upper wisdom tooth removals with a great dentist.

I have a lower molar that has a huge filling in and had a root canal
And crowned 6 months ago.

The discomfort and niggling pains have continued, dentist said i have a hairline fracture and it has most likely travelled down to the root of the tooth and thats why the tooth dont seem to settle.

Ive had the permanant crown taken off couple days ago, and can still feel
Discomfort so i think i want it extracted.

The dentist has done an x-ray and said” i will have a go” that made me nervous,
When i questioned her she said that the roots on the x-ray are quite curved so it could be slightly tricky to take out.
Well thats made my anxiety even worse now, im worried sick and am
Convinced something will go totally wrong.

Has anyone had any experience with this?
Thank you in advance x

 

[Enarete]

Hi SunshineMoon,

not a dentist, but would like to give this a try.. I see how worrysome it is to hear a dentist stating something would be tricky and how this would make you believe something will go wrong. After all, a dentist should know what to do, right? On the other hand, there are many meanings to the word "tricky" and what the dentist may mean by it could be something else than what comes to your mind.

My first thought is that maybe removing it will be a bit more inconvenient to HER, maybe requiring a tool that's not her favourite, or to work a bit differently than she would. Maybe she will need ten minutes instead of three.. who knows. My second thought is that if the tooth managed to get a root canal treatment in the past (even with a crack), then the roots cannot be curvy enough.

In any case, I am confident your dentist will be able to get the tooth out - otherwise she would have referred you anyway.

All the best wishes

 

[Gordon]

A lesson for all us dentists that patients do occasionally pay attention to what we're saying

Enarete has covered this beautifully already in terms of what the dentist probably meant by it.

From practical experience, you can't really tell what an extraction will be like from an x-ray, sometimes they look totally innocuous but turn into a bit of a nightmare, other ones look horrific but just about fall out on their own.