Mary:

If you have the molar extracted, there's a good chance one or both of the molars next to it will lean over to fill the gap. That is, their support will be lost because the adjacent molar is gone. This can result in long term pain. So, if you do have an extraction, the dentist will recommend a bridge to fill the gap and this will cost about as much as a root canal plus a crown. By the way, $2000 seems a little steep as it's about $1500 or $1600 at our local dentist.

Once you get by the initial injection, a root canal is a completely painless procedure but it seems to take forever because they have to take a lot of impressions to make the crown and, at the end, they have to make a temporary crown for you to wear until the permanent one is finished which takes about a month. You might have a little residual pain in your jaw from keeping your mouth open for such a long time or a headache but any nsaid will relieve that.

It's important that you have it done by a competent dentist because root canals can be tricky. The basic process involves drilling down to the bottom of your tooth and then cleaning out all the root canals (hence the name). Sometimes the roots curl up at the bottom or can be tangled with one another. However, there is now an electronic device that they hook up to you and it goes "beep" when the dentist has reached the bottom of each canal. In the past, they had to guess.

Once the canals are clean they are sterilized with some magical fluid and then filled and sealed. Next, the tooth itself has to be shaped to prepare it to receive the crown. Finally, impressions have to be taken and a temporary crown made. All this can take up to two hours which is why you may have a sore jaw for a day or two.

The only good news is that the second appointment to install the crown takes only a few minutes of fooling around to get the crown shaped perfectly. We know this is a lot of money but, in the long run, you'll be glad you did it. Maybe you can work out some kind of payment plan.

Good luck with this. We have had so many root canals that we asked the dentist for a card he could punch each time we had one and maybe get every tenth one free!

Bev and Jerry