Canine Dentistry To Root Canal or Not Root Canal?

My 3 year old Belgian finally had his root canal after over a year of xrays and waiting for a decision to be made. Now he has a stump of a tooth at the front upper canine.





I am extremely annoyed by this as I feel the work should have been done after the first xray in May 2006, at which point insurance company would have paid out. Now they won't as its over a year since initial diagnosis and dental vet has had our dog in three times before finally doing the work. The work cost a thousand pounds. So far the total seems to be in excess of 2 and a half thousand.





I did want the dental vet to do the work initially but he said it was not advisable because the tooth might still be alive. Turned out I was right all along and I wish he'd done what i'd asked.





Question is: Could he have root canalled the tooth on the strong suspicion that it needed it or did he have to wait for the further three xrays.





I am absolutely livid with damned conmen insurance company who won't pay out.

Canine Dentistry To Root Canal or Not Root Canal?
First of all I'm not a dental vet but I am a dentist. I do not know how dental vets operate but i can tell you that in dentistry more often then not if a dentist suspects that a tooth is in need of a root canal we will not go ahead with the treatment until we know for sure that the tooth needs it. A root canal kills the nerve in the tooth and we do not want to do that unless it's absolutely necessary. Sometimes a tooth can display symptoms that seems like the tooth is dying but it ends up being something else. So unless we are 100% sure we will not treat. Hope this helps you.



my cat