Should root be left in gum?

[waterweaver]

I had a root canal on an upper tooth, lateral incisor, ten years ago with no issues until it loosened six months ago due to my own fault of biting something very tough. It fell out two weeks ago. Dentist took xray and said everything looks good, no tooth parts remaining except the upper part of the root. He strongly urges removal of the root and I am reluctant. I do not want any sort of replacement. It seems to be healing on its own so why not just leave it alone?

 

[Busybee]

Surely it's a magnet for infection. How will you clean it?

 

[MattKW]

Hard to say without X-ray to look at. Since it already had RCT, can sometimes leave small bits behind and in the absence of bacteria, it will heal over. If needs to be removed, sometimes it can be very difficult to remove from vertical approach, and quite destructive, so if it has to come out, maybe raise a flap and take it out from buccal approach.

 

[waterweaver]

Matt,

What determines if it needs to be removed? My dentist says the xray shows no indication of pieces of tooth.

 

[MattKW]

Matt,

What determines if it needs to be removed? My dentist says the xray shows no indication of pieces of tooth.

In your first post you said the upper part of the "root"was still there. Now there's no indication of pieces of "tooth"? Then what does he want to extract?

 

[waterweaver]

There are not multiple pieces of broken bone. The xray shows a single, very thin, solid line up in the gum. Since the root canal was ten years ago I am concerned it is weak and could break apart during removal making it more difficult. It seems like just leaving it as is is less risky than getting it removed. And if it gets infected, I get it removed then.