Root Canal Alternative

Many a time you might be recommended to have a root canal treatment. Root canal treatment basically works on the inner aspects of a tooth, unlike other dental procedures. In this procedure, the injury or infection of the nerve inside the tooth or the tooth pulp is cleaned out. In order to avoid the discomfort, pain and cost of this treatment, you might wonder whether there is any alternative for root canal. The root canal alternatives that you can opt for depend on the severity of the injury or root canal infection. Here are the details of possible root canal alternatives.

Root Canal Alternative Treatments
Remember that, you can opt for a root canal alternative only if you have a sick teeth and not a dead teeth! Dead teeth decays further and develops an infection which can become severe. Dead tooth means dead tissue which serves as a food for bacterium which can't be cured unless you opt for a root canal or tooth extraction.

Medication
In case of minor tooth infection antibiotic therapy might prove effective. In rest of the cases, antibiotics might be prescribed to postpone the root canal therapy. Apart from painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications, amoxicillin and keflex are the most commonly prescribed antibiotics for root canal.

Pulp Capping
Pulp capping means placing medicated filling over exposed pulp. While grinding in and trying to clear the decay, your dentist might find the nerve at a spot and this spot will usually bleed a bit. This is known as "nerve exposure". In this case, if the exposure appears healthy, your dentist might opt to do a pulp cap instead of root canal treatment. In the pulp cap procedure, this area is thoroughly sterilized, the bleeding will be stopped and an appropriate filling will be placed over it. This option can also be used when there is a fractured crown or cracks in baby's teeth.

Tooth Extraction
Tooth extraction is the best possible root canal alternative. As mentioned above a dead tooth, has only two alternatives, root canal and tooth extraction. Especially, in case of facial and dental trauma, tooth extraction is the best option. Most of the time, tooth extraction is opted by people to avoid the expenses of a root canal procedure. Though, tooth restoration using a root canal treatment is always a good option to go for, extraction might be needed because of extensive damage due to tooth decay or lack of required tooth structure to support tooth restoration. Usually, partial dentures, dental implant or dental bridge are used to replace the extracted tooth. Once a tooth is extracted, the teeth on its either side are ground down and a crown is made together for these two, along with one in the middle to fill up the empty space left. In case of dental implants, once the area heals, a fake tooth is attached to a dental screw placed into the bone at place of extracted tooth.

So, the aforementioned root canal alternatives, medication or pulp capping might be considered by your doctor, in case the damage is not severe. In case of a necessary root canal treatment, extraction is the only alternative left. Remember that tooth extraction can be an expensive alternative because of the further procedures such as dental bridge or implants that you would need to opt for. Maintaining oral hygiene is the best way to have good dental health and hence avoid any such dental treatments.