Root canal or extraction?

Kate Kestrel said:

can I ask if anyone on here has had the experience of having to make this choice

I have had this choice on 4 occasions - and chose to do root canal and crown each time.

My experience is that the issues around the choice are mostly price and secondly the discomfort,

Price wise I had one lot of root canal work done in the uk (because it was infected) and it cost about £900 for one tooth and it was just filled at the end. Time wise it took about 45 mins.

Pain wise the work didn't hurt in the way you expect drilling to - the injections killed the pain receptors and they could get in there and drill the roots of the molar out. Note that molars can have more than one root and you can pay per root - best to check the price up front so you know what to expect.

The "pain" related issue was having your mouth open for a long time while they work. 45 mins of this got quite uncomfortable, There can be a strange sensation with the upper teeth when they are fishing the nerves out the roots with tiny files as these are going right up in your skull - it doesn't hurt (if it does tell them and they will add anaesthetic) but feels strange.

Where I elected to go for a crown on top it took twice as long and several visits due to the need for shaping the base of the tooth to fit the crown over then the fitting process of the crown. Expect more than one visit but since the nerves of the tooth are gone there is no need for further injections.

I was advised that leaving a void where the tooth was (ie extraction) will lead to the teeth potentially starting to shift towards the space over time and can leave bigger gaps, and more risk of food remaining and causing cavities if you are not strict with brushing / flossing after eating. Maybe that was a sales pitch.

Luckily where I live in Brazil the dental care is a lot better than the UK and prices are a lot lower. I just replaced a big amalgam filling that I've had for over 30 years, had 3 roots canals treated and a crown fitted for abut £600. It took 4 sessions as there was an infection to clear (after the root canal work they pack the roots with antibiotic material for a week then have to re-open the tooth to remove it before closing it up permanently) then they shaped the tooth, test fitted the crown and finally fitted the adjusted crown.

Honestly there was no pain, just the discomfort of someones hands in your mouth and the drilling. You can ask if you can use headphones but the dentist will then need to manually open your mouth wider / move it to the side etc if you can't hear the instructons. That can be a trade off. I tend to put myself into a sort of dissociated state so the discomfort fades away and I can hyperfocus on something I like.

One last word of warning - extractions do come with additional risks - my mother has really deep roots in her teeth and one extraction she had broke some of the structure of her sinuses. That never quite healed properly even after being rushed to hospital for corrective surgery.

Please make sure they have x-rays and talk over the risks with you.

Thanks Iain - this is hugely helpful and also really interesting. It’s obviously quite a complicated process - and what you’ve written here has given me a much better understanding of what’s involved. ‘Fishing the nerves out of the roots’? Yikes. And the idea that they might charge per root - that had never even crossed my mind. Thanks so much for your detailed reply - I appreciate it so much. I had no idea that you lived in Brazil - isn’t it weird on here that you can regular speak to someone on here and assume they’re in the uk - when they are in a completely different place entirely! Did you move to Brazil to work? Or are you originally from Brazil? 

Kate Kestrel said:

Did you move to Brazil to work?

i was born and raised in the UK but work sent me to Brazil around the turn of the century where I met my wife on a blind date, ended up living together while I worked in the region then we got married & moved together to the UK.

We lived and worked in the UK and Europe for most of the next 20 odd years before retiring to Brazil and unfortunately separating (the move was actually part of the separation plan) and we are now business partners and remain close friends.

In total I've spent about 50 years in the UK.

Yes - at his work my husband has to ask some people for their date of birth and he still sometimes does a double take as to him the date they sometimes give feels like yesterday! 
Re. the aging process - it surely is a strange one. We are thinking of moving to a different part of the uk soon and are looking at local services in various places - I said to my husband last night : “I’m not sure we can move there because it’s an hour from the nearest A & E” - we had a laugh about it because it implied a rather doom laden vision of our ‘fresh start’ in a new place! I was conjuring visions of heart attacks and strokes - not a very optimistic outlook! To be fair it was very late at night - never a good time for thinking about these things! I very often have to remind myself to live in the moment and not get into that train of thinking. I lost both my parents this year and last year - and it’s a sobering thing to experience. You have to treasure every day really - whenever possible. 
i struggle to give up wine though - that’s a ‘vice’ that I can’t sacrifice to my wish to have a healthy lifestyle and be on this beautiful planet for as long as possible. After all the point is to enjoy it too isn’t it - not just prolong it! 

Kate Kestrel said:

I still find it hard to think of ‘the turn of the century’ as the most recent ‘turn’!

Oh don't go there!

When I think about people born after the turn I realise that they are now adults and some starting their own families - it kicks hard if you dwell too long on it.

For me the single biggest issue is that my body is now starting to show signs of aging beyond the simple damage of bad living - stuff that is related to the change you go through at this time of life (probably the male menopause / andropause for me) where you have to work so much harder to be able to keep doing the things you always took for granted.

Bah, I'll fight the aging by tooth and claw all the way to the end LOL.

It’s funny - I still find it hard to think of ‘the turn of the century’ as the most recent ‘turn’! For a minute I thought you might be 140 years old

It’s funny - I still find it hard to think of ‘the turn of the century’ as the most recent ‘turn’! For a minute I thought you might be 140 years old

Yes - at his work my husband has to ask some people for their date of birth and he still sometimes does a double take as to him the date they sometimes give feels like yesterday! 
Re. the aging process - it surely is a strange one. We are thinking of moving to a different part of the uk soon and are looking at local services in various places - I said to my husband last night : “I’m not sure we can move there because it’s an hour from the nearest A & E” - we had a laugh about it because it implied a rather doom laden vision of our ‘fresh start’ in a new place! I was conjuring visions of heart attacks and strokes - not a very optimistic outlook! To be fair it was very late at night - never a good time for thinking about these things! I very often have to remind myself to live in the moment and not get into that train of thinking. I lost both my parents this year and last year - and it’s a sobering thing to experience. You have to treasure every day really - whenever possible. 
i struggle to give up wine though - that’s a ‘vice’ that I can’t sacrifice to my wish to have a healthy lifestyle and be on this beautiful planet for as long as possible. After all the point is to enjoy it too isn’t it - not just prolong it! 

Kate Kestrel said:

I still find it hard to think of ‘the turn of the century’ as the most recent ‘turn’!

Oh don't go there!

When I think about people born after the turn I realise that they are now adults and some starting their own families - it kicks hard if you dwell too long on it.

For me the single biggest issue is that my body is now starting to show signs of aging beyond the simple damage of bad living - stuff that is related to the change you go through at this time of life (probably the male menopause / andropause for me) where you have to work so much harder to be able to keep doing the things you always took for granted.

Bah, I'll fight the aging by tooth and claw all the way to the end LOL.