True, Dewey.
Hopefully not, but have you experienced any ill effects from your previous root canals?
No, none whatsoever.
Good to hear - continued health to you.
I would be very wary of a practitioner in any medical field who advertised him/herself as “holistic”. It smacks heavily of meaningless sloganeering at best, and a large, fetid pile of woo at worst.
Every good doctor or dentist is “holistic”; unfortunately the term has been corrupted so that it now signifies someone whose practice is non-evidence based and appeals to superstition and technophobia.
Declanium, if you have read the entire thread you will see that I am a practicing dentist that does root canals and have had six in my lifetime. No they do not cause health problems, period. Don’t know of that book but on any topic one can find a few professionals in the field that go against the overwhelming majority of the rest and the great preponderance of evidence.
There are three main reasons to do a root canal.
- Pre restorative, such as someone fracturing their front tooth to the gum line and doing a root canal to place a post to hold a crown or decay into the nerve.
- Irreversible pulpitis, pain in the tooth that won’t go away by itself. Not related to current decay or other pathology.
- Abscess. infection. Antibiotics may help for a while on some abscesses but are not a real cure if the source isn’t eliminated.
I did a root canal on my mom and would not hesitate to do one on my wife or kids if needed.
Root canals don’t cause health problems, they help prevent them.
I have medium-lousy teeth. Meaning, compared to my peers, not great. Even though I’ve always had access to good care, get my cleanings, floss, use a water-pick, and brush twice a day with a Sonicare. I’ve had four or five root canals, have crowns, and had to have a couple of teeth pulled after failed root canals.
But then I compare that to what my parents have gone though. Both of my parents have recurring periodontal disease throughout their adult lives; and have suffered through multiple root canals, periodontal treatments, and now tooth loss (replaced with bridges). I’ve only had one single mild case of low-level inflammation and one pocket. I had a “deep cleaning” and everything is fine now. My new dentist says my gums look great. w00t!
I use steroid inhalers, which my dentist thinks might contribute to the problem. We know for sure the nighttime stress-related bruxism causes problems, and I’m back to wearing a nighttime dental “bite guard”. Sexxy!
As far as root canals, I can say that I do not have any problems post-root canal that I didn’t have pre-root canal. And the root canal fixed and saved a tooth. I have no complaints.
I’ve had one of them also. A root canal is to save a tooth, an implant is to replace a tooth.
Like everything else it is genetic. I also have a vast array of dental care items, which I use. My wife swipes at her teeth with a manual toothbrush. Her teeth are great.
And when my younger daughter was born they told us to start saving for othodontia. Her teeth grew sideways. When the orthodontist was done with her work he took the entire office to lunch, since it was the toughest work he ever had to do.
Other parts of me work fine, so I’m not complaining…
Now even mainstream (and not woo- woo) media is jumping on bandwagon though.
Google Angie DiPrinzio and her story in the Desert Sun newspaper. They pretty much blame her root canal for her stroke. She had root canal in May 2008, and eight weeks later, the bacteria had attacked her heart valve. She was hospitalized but suffered a stroke and paralysis as a result. That kind of story out in the newspaper is distressing to say the least.
There is zero doubt some root canals are very dangerous, because when they go bad, it’s a serious situation, and can cause very serious health problems. A perfect one, not so much.
YOu’re going to have to provide a cite for that.
Simster, I am unable to cut and paste the article
Perhaps someone else can help with that?
It’s from Nov 2014 - Desert Sun -
Search on Angie DiPrinzio -
Comes up right away.
Called “Fighting for Independence After Stroke”
That appears to be accurate information from this story - Fighting for independence after a stroke
But it’s unclear to me what this story says about the efficacy and safety of root canals. It appears that she had an infection after surgery, which is a possible side effect of any surgery, no?
Right. But dentists have often poo-poo’d the idea of migrating bacteria from a root canal to other organs in body. In this case, it happened. It’s close to impossible to clean out all bacteria from a root canal. Some is left in, and will then migrate. In the cited case, it was a stroke. Some other cases, they say breast cancer. Or kidney disease. Wherever the bacteria unfortunately migrate to attack tissue.
And Telemark, it wasn’t after her surgery that she suffered a stroke. She had a root canal. Right weeks later, she’s admitted to hospital because the bacteria from the root canal attacked her mitral valve. She was awaiting surgery when a piece of heart tissue broke off and went into her neck, causing stroke.
How do they know that it was bacteria from her root canal?
Seriously, I’m not being a smart-ass, I honestly don’t get that. We’re exposed to billions of bacteria daily with or without a root canal.
I guess they’re thinking that she had previously been healthy, vivacious. Then after the root canal, she started feeling fatigued and having sweats? It was the only “out of the ordinary” thing that had been in her experience - so they must have linked that to her illness. It’s great that she’s recovered in seven years time, but it sounds as if it was def an uphill battle. The fact that thru linked such serious illness with a common dental procedure is the scary thing.
Do you have any evidence or cites that “bacteria from a root canal” does any of these things?
The bacteria getting to attack her heart valve was an “inside job,” so that’s why they blamed root canal. The infection was present from tooth and not cleaned out all the way, which I understand is difficult to do. Something’s left in there to do harm.