When a tooth is badly decayed or split, dentists generally weigh up two core treatment options, root canal therapy and having it pulled. While both are tackling major problems like pain and infection, the long-term effects on your wallet & health are worlds apart, especially with Aussie dental costs keep going up. In Oz, where dental treatment costs keep climbing every year, making treatment choices more and more reliant on what’s good for your health & what your wallet can handle, research by global dental groups & oz oral health studies suggests that when possible holding onto a natural tooth often generally gives you better long-term health benefits.
Understanding Where the Money Goes
Noticeably different from one another are the upfront costs of root canal treatment and a tooth being pulled. The standard cost of a simple tooth extraction in Oz is around AUD200 to AUD 600, while a surgical extraction can be over AUD 1,000 depending on how hard it is. Root canal therapy on the other hand can cost you anywhere from AUD 900 to AUD 2,500 and that’s all dependent on which tooth needs it & how many canals need attention. Patients researching treatment options through resources such as Baulkham Hills dental clinics often encounter the perception that extraction is the more affordable choice.
Long-term impact on Your Wallet
Despite having a higher upfront cost, the evidence is all over the place that root canal therapy can provide better long-term value for your cash. The American Association of Endodontists reckon that teeth that have gone through root canal therapy can last you a whole lifetime. When restored properly that is. We even had this big study that looked at 1.4 million teeth that got root canal therapy and the survival rates after 8 years were over 97%. So it’s not looking too bad.
Extracting a tooth, on the other hand, is a different story entirely. Once you lose a tooth, you often need to get a dental implant put in. In Oz that can cost you between AUD 4,000 and AUD 7,000 per tooth. Or a fixed bridge from AUD 3,000 to AUD 6,000 or a removable partial dentures from AUD 1,500 to AUD 4,000. When you do the math, the total cost of having a tooth pulled & then needing further work down the track can be 2 to 5 times what the cost of doing a root canal therapy was.
Impact on Your Teeth & Health
Keeping a natural tooth is the absolute goal in modern dentistry. Natural teeth are way better than artificial ones and most research points to that, with normal chewing function retained and normal sensory feedback from having a natural tooth still in place. With extraction, though, the opposite happens. We start losing bone in the jaw. During the first year after you get a tooth extracted studies have found as much as 25% bone mass can disappear. The biggest changes happen in the first 3 months after. Bone loss can even affect your neighbouring teeth and have you needing major work done to restore your bite.
Risk of Future Complications & Additional Treatment Down the Line
When we’re evaluating treatment options, there’s one super important thing to consider the potential for complications further down the road. We’ve come a long way in root canal treatment, thanks to better imaging, fancy tools and improved ways of keeping teeth clean. Studies have shown that most root canals are pretty successful in the 86 to 98% range, depending on how complicated the case is and how long we follow up for.
But taking out the tooth is a different story. If we get rid of the tooth, the ones next to it can start shifting into the empty space and cause problems with how they line up and bite. Research has shown that even with just a few months of waiting, the other teeth can start to move around. Which can lead to uneven wear, gum problems and the need for more work down the line.
How Treatment Impacts Quality of Life?
Nowadays, patient feedback is playing a bigger and bigger role in deciding what treatment to give. The good news is that if we can keep the natural teeth, patients tend to be way happier with the outcome. A big study looked at what happened after treatment and found that people who got their teeth saved through root canals were better off in terms of how comfortable they were, how well they could chew and overall how well their teeth were working for them than people who got their teeth pulled and had to wait to get them replaced.
The World Health Organisation says that having a functional mouth is key to staying healthy as you get older. Having a full set of teeth is pretty important. Keeping at least 20 of your own teeth throughout your life has lots of benefits. You’ll eat better, communicate better and feel way more confident. Root canals help make that happen by keeping your teeth, rather than counting them out.
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