Ask a Dentist: Root Canals and Broken Teeth

I’m Dr Matthew Darbro, and I am here to help. As I understand it, you had a tooth that had a root canal some time ago and now it has broken, possibly in half.

When a tooth has a root canal, the tooth becomes weak and brittle and the chance of it breaking starts to increase. A tooth with a root canal treatment needs a crown, a way of restoring the whole outside part of a tooth to protect it from breaking.

There are different ways a tooth can fracture and some times although it feels like the tooth has broken in half, it is only a part of the top of the tooth. If this is the case, the root canal should be checked to make sure it hasn’t been reinfected and the outside of the tooth can be fixed with a crown, this restoration that remakes the whole visible part of a tooth. In my office, if the tooth is savable, I would restore it with a CEREC crown.

If the tooth has a more serious break, then the entire tooth will need to be taken out. This should be done immediately because bacteria can easily into your bone and cause an infection. After the tooth has been taken out, you have a couple of different choices to get a tooth back in that spot in your mouth. . . implant, bridge, or a partial denture comes to mind, depending on what teeth remain.