Save the tooth or take it out? How a dentist decides

When a tooth is badly damaged, you may be given a choice: treat it to keep it, or take it out. Understanding how the decision is made helps you ask the right questions.

Why keeping your own tooth is usually preferred

Your own tooth works with your bite, helps hold the bone in place and keeps the neighbouring teeth steady. Replacements can be very good, but they cost more time and money and they need care. So, when a tooth can be saved with a reasonable chance of lasting, saving it is usually the first choice.

What does the dentist look at?

• How much healthy tooth is left. A tooth needs enough sound structure above the gum to be rebuilt.
• The roots. Are they intact, or is there a crack that runs down?
• Infection. Can it be cleared by a root canal treatment?
• The gum and bone. A tooth with little bone left holding it will not last, even if treated.
• The tooth’s job. A back tooth that does a lot of chewing, or a front tooth that is visible, may be worth more effort.
• You. Your health, whether you will keep up the follow-up and cleaning, and what you want.

When saving makes sense

Deep decay that can be treated with a root canal and a crown, a chipped tooth that can be rebuilt, or a tooth that is loose only because of treatable gum disease. See broken or chipped tooth and crowns after a root canal.

When removal is the safer choice

• The tooth is cracked below the gum, or split down the root.
• There is too little tooth left to rebuild.
• The bone around it has been lost to severe gum disease.
• Treatment would be unlikely to work, or the infection keeps coming back.
• A wisdom tooth that keeps causing trouble, as in do wisdom teeth need to come out?.

What if you wait?

A tooth that cannot be saved does not get better by waiting. The infection can spread, and the bone around it can shrink. Read tooth abscess.

If you decide on removal

Ask what will replace the tooth, and when. See what to expect from an extraction and replacing a missing tooth.

Questions worth asking

What will happen if we do nothing? What is the chance this treatment works? What does it involve, and how many visits? What will it cost over time? What are the alternatives?

When to see a dentist

Ask for an examination and an X-ray. Dental care is available at both our clinics, in Sayan and on Chhaprabhatha-Variyav Road. Use the booking button below to ask for an appointment.