What Do I Do When Told to Have a Tooth Extracted?

Get a second opinion.

Unfortunately, in today’s environment with implants being available, patients are told to have teeth extracted and replaced with implant supported crowns. Although we are very experienced with implant restoration (over 2,500 implants inserted and restored in our office), I will always try to save a tooth rather than extract, if our patient so desires, as demonstrated by the following example.

Our patient presented with a desire to replace her crowns which were not aesthetically pleasing (Fig. 1, arrow). Unfortunately, unbeknownst to her, she had extensive decay leaving very little tooth structure upon which to place a crown (Fig. 2).

Although many dentists would recommend extraction and replacement with implants, we were able to reconstruct the tooth abutments (Fig. 3) and fabricate two very natural looking crowns (Fig. 4).