Do Root Canals harm your health? NO!!!

This past summer a young man came into my practice after hitting his front teeth in a car accident.  Two of the front teeth would require root canals as a result of the blows to them.  The third tooth had part of the crown fractured diagonally but at present did not require root canal treatment.  It would require a crown.
I referred this young man to an Endodontist (specialist in root canals) for this treatment.  Two weeks later this young man came into my office asking to speak to me.  He informed me that he had cancelled his appointment with the Endodontist and was inquiring about having his front teeth replaced with implants.
I asked him why he was considering this course of action?  He responded by telling me that he had read on the internet that root canals would harm his health.
Great, another internet Myth!
I told this young man that he had NOTHING to worry about when it comes to root canals.  That the treatment was safe and validated by years of real scientific study.   He was a little reluctant to tell me about what he had read.  On the other hand, he was not sure if he totally believed what he had read so he came to discuss what he should do regarding his teeth.
I again advised him that root canal treatment would be the best course of treatment in his mouth.  That I had a front tooth with a root canal in it since I was 9 years old.  That is 44 years since I had it done and no I don't suffer from arthritis, Lou Gehrig's disease or a host of other diseases that root canals are supposed to cause.  But of course this is just my own personal observation and not science.  The science, done by Doctors and Dentists and other researchers,  corroborate the safety of this procedure.  I further asked him why would he want to take out his natural teeth and replace them with implants.  Some of these articles say a root canal tooth is a dead tooth and therefore should come out.  Great, you are going to replace one dead part with another dead part - the implant.  In most of the articles you are told that root canal treatment is one of the most expensive treatments in dentistry and you know those greedy dentist are not telling you the truth because they just want to make more money.  Well, the truth is, to extract this fellows  teeth and replace them with implant supported crowns would end up costing him 4-5 times as much money.  Another myth busted, I guess we dentists actually do care more about our patients than the money!!
There is so much more that I could elaborate on what these people are saying but I am busy actually treating and caring for my patients.
Suffice to say that this young man did have the root canals done and he is fine.
To anyone reading this out there, please be careful of all the people out there on the internet who truly would put your health at risk through dissemination of lies and half truths in support of their own personal agendas.  Your Doctors and Dentists are professional who have truly dedicated their lives to improve the lives of others.  They are not the ones you should be afraid of.

Having fun doing dentistry in Hamilton Ontario.

All the best
Dr.Ron Barzilay
www.rondentist.com

Dr. why do I have to fill out all of these Questions?

Many times a new patient will come to the office and start filling out our medical questionnaire and half way through get angry and flustered.  They then come to the front desk and ask:  What do all these questions have to do with my teeth?

Well that is really a great question and the answer goes something like this.

Most people will never have a problem in the dental office but we in the dental office have to be prepared in case of emergency and we have to make sure that we don't do anything that will cause a medical emergency in the dental office.  This starts with a thorough medical history of our patients.  We want to know that our patients are not allergic to any antibiotic that we may need to give them, we want to know that they have not had a bad reaction to the local anaethetic that we need to put the tooth to sleep.  We need to know that our patients are not allergic to our gloves etc.  We want to know if our patients are taking any medications for an underlying condition as our anaethetics could react adversely with those medications or a medication that we may prescribe could act adversely with a medication that they are taking.  We want to know if they have an underlying condition so that we can determine if they are suitable for treatment in a dental office or may require referral for treatment in a hospital setting.  We would want to know regarding underlying conditions so that in case of emergency we are better suited to help them.  The different possibilities are endless but knowing as much as possible about our patients medical history will help us avoid any unfortold medical emergencies and if they arise will help us better deal with them.  In our office we take blood pressure readings for all new patients and at recall appointments for our existing patients.  15% of the population walks around with undiagnosed hypertension and we have literally come across a number of those patients.  Incidentally we have had patients whose family phycicians have told them that their dentist saved their life.  We also take blood glucose for our diabetic patients to see how controlled their diabetes is.  The examples and their importance are endless.  I hope you got the picture!

What do all these questions have to do with your teeth?  They have so much to do with your teeth and your overall well being!  Thit is a great question, thank you for asking so we could have the opportunity to explain this to you!

All the best
Dr. Ron Barzilay

having fun doing dentistry in Hamilton Ontario

follow my blog

www.rondentist.com