Dental malpractice experiences? Never ending nightmare!?

My current dentist has recently informed me that after taking a panoramic xray he discovered that a tooth I had a root canal done on 2years ago by a different dentist had a broken file and a piece of rubber from the tool used during the procedure lodged in the tooth with a huge infection at the base of tooth and it needed to be removed ASAP. I am obviously in litigation with the previous facility because they refused to talk to me after they saw the xray. Anyway, I elected to get a dental bridge b/c I was not a good canidate for an implant. I have had to refuse the bridge 3 times because one of the teeth (bicuspid) looks really bulky. I am now told that the tooth they shaved underneath (that was a virgin tooth) needs a rootcanal so they can shave it down more so the bridge will look normal. Another 700. for a tooth that had nothing wrong with it. Should a bridge be supported by a tooth with a root canal ? What happens if the root canal fails, would I lose the entire bridge? Please help

Dental malpractice experiences? Never ending nightmare!?
I'm sorry to hear you have had so much trouble. You will probably not get any kind of award for the tooth with broken file. Despite our best efforts, the instruments we use sometimes break. Any dentist who hasn't had a file break in a tooth hasn't done many root canals. Usually the files can be removed, but unfortunately they sometimes cannot be safely removed. If the root canal can be filled around the file these sometimes do remarkably well. It is not ideal but sometimes that is the best that can be done in an unfortunate situation.





As far as the need for a root canal for a bridge, that is not uncommon either. My preference would probably be to accept the esthetic compromise of the "bulky" bridge rather than have an unecessary root canal. In the end that is a personal decision you will have to make. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer; it just has to be a decision you feel comfortable with.





Hope that helps some.