Traditional root canals have a big problem: They involve removing the inside pulp and nerves of a tooth and replacing it with a substance called gutta percha, a thermoplastic material made from a Malaysian plant. This material is combined with zinc oxide, heated and pressed into the cleaned-out canal. This toxic sealant reacts badly with the moisture of the mouth, eventually pulling away and breaking the seal at the bottom of the canal, allowing infection to invade.

Fortunately, there’s an alternative: a calcium hydroxide sealer with a beneficial side effect: it encourages the growth of bone. This substance is also more biocompatible than the traditional toxic thermoplastic sealant and reacts to moisture by swelling rather than shrinking, making it the smartest choice today for root canal therapy.

There is also another choice: BeeFill, a root canal sealant with a pH of 12.8 that doesn’t harden right away, allowing it to continue sterilizing the treated tooth area for days after the procedure. For some dentists, it’s now the standard.

Because the quality and type of sealant are the primary factors in the success and safety of a root canal, it matters which sealant is used. When you choose a dentist randomly or based on what your friends tell you, you never know what products they might be using. San Diego Dentist Association members make smart, biocompatible dentistry choices and are willing to discuss them with you openly.

What To Do If You Need A Root Canal

Biocompatible root canal therapy is better than a traditional root canal, but it still may not be the best choice in every situation. Root canal alternatives are available as well, and you should always consult with your chosen dentist and consider the many options before making a decision. Your dentist can help you decide if your chronic health conditions and overall wellbeing make it likely that root canal treatment will have side effects.

Any tooth for which you decline a root canal will almost certainly need to be extracted and replaced, so you should consider whether a root canal makes more sense than having to have a tooth replacement procedure instead.

If you live in the San Diego area and a dentist has recommended a root canal to you, consider getting another opinion from one of the top SDDA dentists. This will help you make sure you’re making the right choice for short-term results and long-term health considerations.

Understanding Biocompatible Root Canals

Root canal therapy can be confusing to patients because it is usually done as the last resort to save a decayed or heavily damaged tooth, but there are other alternatives as well. If you’re faced with having a root canal, you should ask yourself two questions:

  1. Will the tooth need to be extracted if I don’t have root canal therapy? Keep in mind that extraction has consequences, including the potential risks of the procedure as well as teeth spreading and other concerns later.
  2. Is root canal treatment safe? The treatment plan a dentist recommends to you may involve toxic materials and could have other side effects and consequences that are not immediately evident.

Good holistic dentists will tell you that a holistic root canal is better than a traditional one. Additionally, they may recommend that you consider other options as well. It’s your body on which the root canal procedure will be done and your body into which potentially toxic sealants will be placed, so you need to make an informed decision.

Holistic dentists find significant guidance regarding the root canal controversy in the book Root Canal Cover-Up by Dr. George E. Meinig, which is based in part on research by Dr. Weston Price. It’s available from Amazon and may help you with your decision.

In some cases, patients have been led to make the permanent, irrevocable decision to have one or more teeth extracted without understanding the consequences of that decision. Before deciding firmly on extraction as an alternative to root canal therapy or to get rid of an old, toxic root canal, speak with your SDDA dentist about the consequences of having a tooth extracted, including the mental unease it can cause. You may even experience balance issues.

You should never feel pressured by any dental professional to choose one treatment type over another, and you should feel free to reject suggested treatment plans. The job of a dentist is to advise and treat you, not to force or upset you.

Holistic dentists Dr. Meining and Dr. Price explored the many possible problems with root canal treatment, and their findings and conclusions are accepted by most holistic dentists. The problem, however, is that many patients don’t know there’s any controversy about root canals and don’t know that they can access information about the topic on websites like this one and books like Root Canal Cover-Up. The book offers 25 years of research and insights into root canal therapy issues, including the prevalence of root canal infection.

Root Canals And Infections

At the time the book Root Canal Cover-Up was first being compiled, dentists and other medical professionals were getting concerned about the possibility of focal infections – an infection involving one part of the body that causes an infection in another part of the body. While these infections are considered to be rare by some in the scientific community, research has proven that they are of concern. That means a small, seemingly insignificant infection of the gums can spread to other places in the body, creating an infection in a place that you may not immediately know needs treatment.

Dr. Weston Price showed through his research that an infection originating in a tooth could reach the kidneys. Based on his research, other scientists found that 95 percent of focal infections came from either the teeth or tonsils and had traveled to a new infection site through the lymphatic system. The bacteria spread continued in some cases even after traditional root canal treatment when the sealant was not properly applied. The new infection could usually be treated, but the tooth may have still been infected.

Teeth have a hollow space at the root called the nerve canal, but isn’t just a single canal. There are many small branches that go off within the tooth. Bacteria may be present in all those offshoots. During root canal therapy, the goal is to remove all bacteria and seal off all branches. The canal must be completely sterilized and filled with a dental material to prevent the bacteria from reestablishing themselves.

This sealing offshoots and leaving bacteria with nowhere to live works in a general sense, but research has shown that teeth root nerves are more complicated than dentists realized in years past. Small nerve branches don’t just peter out, they get smaller and smaller and run throughout the entire tooth. That means bacteria can spread into areas where dentists can’t get with their drills and sealants – and continue to grow.

Root canal therapy needs to be done as soon as a problem with a tooth is diagnosed to have a chance at success in resolving the issue before bacteria spreads any more than it already has. As the nerve goes from merely inflamed to infected, it may be too late to prevent bacteria from spreading to other parts of the body. A calcium hydroxide sealant can kill any remaining bacteria and keep it from spreading. Most dentists have this substance within their reach, but they still may choose other less effective sealants in root canal therapy that do not fight infection.

Alternatives To Root Canal

Extraction is the primary alternative to root canal, but this treatment has its own problems. If you choose extraction, you should replace the tooth in some way to prevent additional problems. Long-term impacts of unreplaced tooth extractions include gum disease, spreading, bite issues, complications with chewing and problems talking normally. You could even experience loss of bone mass in your jawbone that will leave you vulnerable to yet more problems.

One option for missing tooth replacement that can mitigate some, but not all, of these problems is a clip-in partial denture. This solution provides some restoration of function and limited cosmetic benefit, but it’s usually noticeable and rarely the most desirable solution.

A more appealing alternative for replacing a missing tooth is a dental implant – a false tooth crown mounted on a titanium post that is implanted into the gap left from the extraction. The downside of dental implants, however, is that they are fairly expensive and require a surgical procedure to place. You may need bone mass augmentation and other surgical procedures to prepare for an implant as well.

Implants can also support a dental bridge. If you have natural teeth on each side of the gap, they can support a bridge instead. The downside in this case is that the closest tooth on each side must be ground down and crowned, which means healthy tooth will be lost unless you needed crowns on these teeth anyway.

The Bottom Line

To make the right choice, you must take into account your own preferences, the advice of your dentist and the research and findings of Drs. Price and Meinig regarding the downsides of root canal therapy.

If you decide to get a root canal, ask what sealant will be used. If you choose an SDDA dentist, you can rely on them making the right choice – which is calcium hydroxide in most cases. This is the best sealant for root canal treatment, and it’s the one you should request from your dentist. By being informed and stating your knowledge and preferences, you can be sure that you get the treatment that you deserve.

Because of research pioneered years ago by Dr. Price, many dentists across the nation and around the world know about the remarkable properties of calcium hydroxide for dental patients who need root canal therapy. In fact, it was Dr. Price who proved that using calcium hydroxide during root canal treatments caused treated teeth to remain at a pH of about 10 for at least 120 days, and that’s the perfect pH level for teeth, the right level for the healing process and where the acid level needs to be to prevent bacterial growth.

In addition to cleaning a tooth and eliminating bacteria, calcium hydroxide can stimulate bone to repair itself while also reducing the level of inflammation present around the tooth. Killing bacteria is surely the primary reason that dentists know about it, but research has proven that it has a range of other useful and intriguing properties. By using this substance for root canal therapy, dentists can enable patients to experience reduced recovery time so they can fully use their teeth much sooner than if they had had a root canal using a different kind of filler and sealant.

There are additional options out there, but none so far live up to the remarkable natural properties that calcium hydroxide has to offer. Research continues, of course, but no substance currently available shows any more benefits than calcium hydroxide.

We generally advise calcium hydroxide for root canal treatment, but new options become available all the time – and additional research could prove there’s an even better treatment. That’s why we recommend having a discussion with your dentist to understand their recommendations before you rule in or rule out any options.

To help you decide if a biocompatible root canal could save your decayed or damaged tooth or if you would do better if you considered a root canal alternative, reach out to a San Diego Dentist Association member now for a consultation. Some dental decisions aren’t clear at first, but with research and expert advice you can make a sensible decision that will serve you well now – and well into the future. Our members are here to help you at every step of the way.

 

To find out if a biocompatible root canal or root canal alternatives are right for you, call Us at (619) 745-6870.