The pros and cons to Root Canals…

The pros and cons to Root Canals.

Okay, root canals aren’t the best thing in the world, I will admit that. I’ve had one retreated after it got reinfected. That’s a complete possibility. That would be a con. Your tooth can still get reinfected. It will hurt because the ligament gets irritated, but not because the tooth is infected, there is no nerve there anymore! Also, your tooth becomes brittle. I don’t know about you, but it sucks. I’m always afraid of breaking my teeth, of course, my root canals are in the front teeth so breaking one would suck!

But…on the other hand, they get you out of some of the worst pain you’ll ever experience. I have heard it’s worse than giving birth to a baby, but I’ll let actual mothers be the judge of that. So a root canal will relieve the pain (maybe after a round of antibiotics). It also allows you to keep your tooth! I would rather have a root canal with my natural tooth under a crown than have an implant or bridge! Or, even better, a root canal is better than that gaping hole left by pulling the tooth.

It also removes the infection from your tooth and mouth. Removing that infection is better for your health and your life. You can die from that! So, a lot of upsides to this root canal business!

Can you live without a root canal? You could for a while, depending on how good your immune system is. You could also would have to have a high pain tolerance or hope your tooth isn’t hitting any other tooth. Mostly see drug addicts putting up with tooth pain, but that goes without saying. A lot of times they “put up” with the pain to get more pain meds, but that’s another subject for maybe another day.

Now for the more “serious” topic, are root canals dangerous? Nope, not dangerous. It’s more dangerous to walk down the street with the bright sunlight beating down on you every day than a root canal is. But, there are whispers on the internet that people with root canals get cancer. Okay, I haven’t done any research, but my logical side said that’s just like saying people who drink water get cancer or the people who breathe air get cancer. Not everyone who has root canals gets cancer, and not everyone who has cancer has root canals. But, you can say everyone who has had cancer has breathed the air. So unless you have some fancy way around it, we’re all susceptible to cancer. And unfortunately we haven’t found the cure yet, but it isn’t pulling out all of your teeth with root canals in them, and that’s not for the prevention of cancer either. Sorry if I shattered anybody’s hopes!