Deep Dental Decay: Filling, Root Canal, or Extraction?
Jan 07, 2025
Perhaps you have a fear of the dentist, as many people do. Maybe life just got busy and you missed a few dental appointments. Whatever the cause, if you get a cavity and it goes untreated, you can develop a bigger problem: deep dental decay.
At Llanos Dental Group in Miami Lakes, Florida, Dr. Laura Llanos and her team understand that things can get in the way of regular dental care and that some people are simply genetically more prone to tooth decay than others. When we see a case of deep dental decay, our goal is to help, and that’s usually through providing a filling, performing a root canal, or extracting the affected tooth.
A quick primer on the different parts of a tooth can be helpful in understanding how tooth decay works.
Dental enamel is the super-hard, outer layer of your tooth. It’s the hardest substance in the human body. It’s also not a living tissue. Although dental enamel is very tough, it can be damaged. When that happens, it endangers the inner parts of your tooth — your dentin, cementum, and dental pulp.
This is tissue that has many tiny canals that can cause tooth sensitivity. If you know the sharp pain that comes when you take a drink of a hot or cold beverage with sensitive teeth, you know how important it is to protect your dentin!
This connective tissue found in your tooth’s root is a bit like bone. It holds your tooth in place, anchoring it to your jawbone. Along with enamel, cementum plays a role in protecting your dentin.
The innermost layer of your tooth is made up of nerves, connective tissue, and blood vessels. It’s soft, and it’s vulnerable to infection when the outer tooth layers fail.
Where you are in the five stages of tooth decay determines Dr. Llanos’ recommendation on how to treat the affected tooth. She may recommend a simple filling, a root canal to save the tooth, or an extraction to limit the spread of decay.
When the mineral that makes your enamel so hard begins to break down, you’re in stage one. You may notice small, chalky-looking spots on your tooth at this stage.
After the mineral begins to break down, your enamel is at risk of decay. Once there’s a hole in your enamel, you have a cavity. You might notice small brown spots on your tooth.
When bacteria breaches your enamel, your dentin is at risk. The cavity begins to grow more quickly, and you’re likely to have tooth sensitivity at this stage.
At this stage, the decay is deep, and you probably have a bad toothache and inflammation of your gums.
Once the decay has reached your tooth’s root, you may develop an abscess, which is a deep infection. You may have swelling of your neck or face and intense pain. Treatment at this stage is crucial because the infection can spread to other parts of your body.
Our goal is to save your natural tooth if possible. For us to have the best chance of doing that, we need to see you as early in the process of decay as you can manage. One reason we stress regular visits and preventive dentistry services is because we can detect signs of decay before you can, most of the time.
Some of the ways we approach tooth decay include:
If you’ve noticed signs of tooth decay, or even if it’s been awhile since your last dental checkup, we encourage you to schedule an appointment at Llanos Dental Group to protect your teeth.