Expert: Gary Backlund, DMD, MSD - 7/3/2009

Question
I just acquired a really good dental plan through my work and finally made those first few scary baby steps to a dentist after having not been for about 10 years.  My teeth are not as bad as I thought but I do need at least one root canal on my first molar, all the way in the back of my mouth.  It has a fairly old filling in it, but there's still considerable tooth left.  My question is this-after having the root canal and the tooth build up, do I necessarily have to have a crown?  A co-worker had a root canal on the same tooth years ago and opted for no crown and says her tooth is perfectly fine.  I understand crowns for cosmetic reasons but this tooth is a back molar so I really don't care how it looks.  What do you think?

Answer
Hi Lisa,

In our office, we suggest crowns on ALL back teeth...and we don't do crowns....as a way to protect the tooth from fracture and cracking. I agree, esthetics is not really an issue. It's more an issue of function. Back teeth have very strong biting forces placed on them and we see as high as 30% crack if they aren't crowned. Now obviously that means 70% don't crack, but you're taking your chances. Sometimes the crack is so bad, the tooth has to be extracted.

Hope this helps.

Gary Backlund DMD, MSD