Expert: Gary Backlund, DMD, MSD - 3/20/2005

Question
Dr. Backlund-

You've answered my questions before, and as always, I am very grateful.  Thank you.  I had root canals on teeth 8 & 9 in late January.  These teeth had previously had crowns placed on them (2 years ago).  In late February, several weeks after the initial root canal procedure, I went back to the endodontist for completion.  He put in place a temorary filling, and told me to wait a week or two, and then have the permanent filling placed by my general dentist.  To date, I've had no difficulty with these teeth. The quesiton I have is this - do I really need a permanent filling placed?  He showed me an x-ray after the procedure, which showed a post (perhaps not the proper term, but after drilling out the tooth, he placed a needle like object into the canals and this was visible on the x-ray - "post") and only a very small unfilled area - at the bottom of posts.  This is where I presume the permament filling would be placed.  Is it really necesssary, particularly in light of the fact crowns are already in place?  I am ignorant, and don't know the reason for the permament filling, and so while I anticiate I'll still have the permanent filling put in, I was wondering if its truly needed.  Thanks.

Answer
Hi K. R.,

Glad to hear from you again and it sounds like your treatment is progressing nicely....*S*.

After a root canal is done, the hole in the back of the crown that was drilled though to get access to do the root canal needs to be permanently filled and sealed. I'm sure that is the temporary filling the endodontist is talking about. If you just have a temporary filling there, it will eventually wash out and allow leakage to occur inside the tooth that could eventually affect the cement of the post ( you used the right term...*S*...) and even could cause the root canal to fail. I would definately suggest you get back to your regular dentist to have all this completed.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Gary Backlund DMD, MSD