is a crown necessary for an apical abscess after a root canal? (teeth, dentist)

[gookgette]

hello, i'm not sure i trust my dentist. all of my friends have gotten crowns put on after their root canals and the other dentist said that i would need a crown, but my dentist said it wasn't necessary for me b/c the majority of my premolar/bicuspid tooth is healthy.

for any experts or dentists out there, can you tell me if a crown is necessary for an apical abscess after a root canal?

[drsmiley06]

Not every root canal treated tooth needs a crown. If the majority of the tooth is still there and the integrity of the tooth, meaning it still has it's original walls and it isn't badly broken down, crowns aren't always needed. Now, as for the apical abscess, that's a different story. You need to let that tooth heal even if you were to put a crown on it. What if the root canal had to be redone and there was a crown on there, then the dentist would have to punch a nice size hole in the crown you just had done and let me tell you doing a root canal thru a crown isn't easy, much harder than if the crown wasn't on. Plus, you wouldn't want to put a crown on a tooth if it's still symptomatic, you would want to resolve the apical abscess first and let the tooth calm down first and then think about the crown. I have many patients walking around with teeth I did root canals on but no crowns and they're doing just fine. If the tooth needs to get a crown because it's badly broken down that's fine, but not every root canal treated tooth needs a crown. Hope this helps.

[heetseeker]

I had a root canal on my front tooth when I was thirteen and just got a crown put on at 43 because it cracked.

[Tony22]

I never got a crown after my root canal.

[gookgette]

wow, your tooth cracked 30 yrs later? i heard crowns last for only ~10 years anyway, right?

thank you for your responses. my dentist is kinda old school, so i'm not sure how attuned he is with current guidelines. he said my tooth is mostly healthy, so there's no reason to grind it down to a stub and put a crown over it..but i've been reading through scholarly journals, and it seems the general consensus is that i should get a crown if it's a posterior tooth (upper 1st premolar/bicuspid), but i hope to know for sure...do u think it's okay to get one later, or could it potentially cause more damage and complications if i waited? how soon after do you get the crown if you need one? i've read you are supposed to get a crown within a month of the root canal...

[drsmiley06]

Believe it or not dentistry really hasn't changed all the much in the past few decades, only the materials have really changed, but the actual dentistry itself, not really. It really depends on how much tooth structure is left. I have plenty of patients walking around with root canal treated teeth that aren't crowned. If the restoration happens to break I'll replace and then think about a crown. In this economy, alot of people are now asking "can't I just get away with a restoration and not a crown?" Well the answer, sometimes, is yes you can!

[gookgette]

thank you drsmiley! good to hear. i have big teeth, so a ton of tooth structure is left.