When your dentist tells you that you have a tooth that is full of decay, the dentist may give you two different ways to treat it. The first option, which is often the recommended option, is to treat the tooth as a way of saving it. The second option is often extracting the tooth. If you are left to make this decision, here are several things to know about the pros and cons of both options.

The pros and cons of saving a tooth

Making the decision to treat the tooth is the only way to save a tooth that is covered in decay, and saving a tooth can be important because you will never grow another tooth in this area again. A real tooth is anchored in your mouth with strong roots, and this is just one of the top reasons why it is important to try to keep every tooth you have. When you save the tooth, you can avoid having a gap in your mouth and you can have a real tooth still.

The downside with saving a tooth that is covered in decay is that you may need to go through two different procedures, which can be costly. These procedures include getting a root canal on the tooth and getting a dental crown placed over it. Getting these procedures will require several visits to a dentist, but going through them will offer a way to keep this tooth. When finished, you will have your natural tooth still there, but it will have a crown over it, which helps give the tooth more strength. The good news is that the crown will look just like a natural tooth and will work just like one too.

The pros and cons of removing the tooth

Getting the tooth extracted offers the benefit of saving some money, in a sense. If you extract the tooth, you will not have to go through the root canal procedure or the dental crown procedure, which means you will spend less money.

The downside is that you will have a gap in your mouth, and this is never a good thing. If you ever want to fill in the gap, you would have to spend a lot of money on an artificial tooth, and these can also be very expensive and require several visits to the dentist.

As you compare the pros and cons of saving a tooth to those of extracting the tooth, you might decide that saving the tooth seems to be the best option. If you have questions about either choice, talk to a dentist's office like Twin Cities Dental.