Can I make my endontist redo my root canal?

[Anonymous]

Had it done three months ago, pain is back now on same area. Can root canals fail? Can I insist on free follow up treatment?

[Anonymous]

Pretty sure you can’t “make” anyone do anything. You can certainly ask.

[Anonymous]

Mine needed redoing. I had no pain but it got infected.

[Anonymous]

It is possible they did a horrible job and missed part of the nerve. It’s more likely it’s infected. There’s also a chance that your dentist did something incorrect when putting the filling in. I’d go back asap in case of infection

[Anonymous]

If you have pain in the tooth then they didn’t get all the nerve. I had a root canal fail after several years and it developed into a large abscess but I had no pain whatsoever and hence no warning till I woke up with a swollen jaw.

[Anonymous]

Yes, root canals can fail in different ways. In my case, the [crappy] endo missed a root altogether. My abscess was silent like PP’s. And you couldn’t pay me to revisit that same guy!

But if the crown was poorly fitted or teeth have shifted, that could also be a source of pain due to a bite issue. Or it could be referred pain from elsewhere.

Doubtful you’ll get a free fix, but you may get lucky.

[Anonymous]

Mine failed so I had it redone. I was in a lot of pain still so there was no question that it didn’t go as expected (it was also my second one, so I had something to compare it to, the first one went without an issue). The dentist had no issue redoing it, without any additional charges. I read that maybe 5% of root canals fail so it isn’t super rare.

[Anonymous]

You can, but you'll be having to pay for it again, if that is what you are alluding to. Maybe find a new endodontist.

[Anonymous]

You should ask. Mine saw me right away to make sure it was okay.

I had significant bone damage because I had ignored a lot of pain (I thought it was a sinus infection! But it was like the tooth infection busting through oops). So that took a long time to heal and there was pain along the way.

What they said is that if you have a fancy 3d scanner thing, it’s pretty hard to miss a root like in the olden days. Tbh the endo was pretty dismissive about me still having pain once he did the scan and confirmed his part looked good. But my wonderful dental hygienist was not and poked around a little to confirm the lingering pain I have is something else maybe turned up by all the bone issues. And a year later, it has all settled down. But yeah, even though all the nerves are gone that tooth is still sensitive if I push on it. So that can be true even if the root canal is okay.

[Anonymous]

Did you get an X-ray at a follow up visit? I did. You can easily see the root on the X-ray

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should ask. Mine saw me right away to make sure it was okay.

I had significant bone damage because I had ignored a lot of pain (I thought it was a sinus infection! But it was like the tooth infection busting through oops). So that took a long time to heal and there was pain along the way.

What they said is that if you have a fancy 3d scanner thing, it’s pretty hard to miss a root like in the olden days. Tbh the endo was pretty dismissive about me still having pain once he did the scan and confirmed his part looked good. But my wonderful dental hygienist was not and poked around a little to confirm the lingering pain I have is something else maybe turned up by all the bone issues. And a year later, it has all settled down. But yeah, even though all the nerves are gone that tooth is still sensitive if I push on it. So that can be true even if the root canal is okay.

I too still had pain after a perfectly done root canal. It did go away after 6m or so. I’d forgotten about it until now.

[Anonymous]

It's called a re-treat and it's not uncommon in endo. Means they didn't get everything out of the tooth. Call the endo's office.