Monday, January 30, 2012

Alternative Treatment Option To Root Canal or Tooth Extraction

Are you having a toothache that needs root canal but tight on funds? Dr. Vuong can help! With mutual agreement, partial root canal treatment called a pulpectomy can be done to relieve pain, so that you can save money and complete the procedure in the near future, preferably within 4-6 months period. The sooner you can finish the procedure to seal the tooth from bacteria and re-infection, the better!  And it is important to restore the broken tooth with a crown to protect it from fracturing.  Even when the best root canal procedure is completed, but the patient fails to follow up with restoring it, the prognosis of that tooth decreases tremendously.

Understandably, pulpectomy is rarely presented to patients as a treatment option because it can be considered not a standard of care.  In some cases, pulpectomy may not completely alleviate pain or swelling, or it may cause more complication for which the dentist would have to continue with the treatment.  Or the patient simply fails to follow through.  With trust and mutual agreement between the patient and the dentist, and with the understanding that this treatment option is a temporary relief for pain, it would be a great benefit to someone in pain, who is motivated to save the tooth, and wants to work out a payment arrangement to get the treatment completed properly.  

When proper steps are taken and followed up, pulpectomy could be a good alternative solution rather than taking the tooth out, which will cost more to replace in the future. Of course, pulling that tooth out is the less expensive option if you still want to go that route. We can do that too!

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