Kelli,
Has your dentist sent you to a good periodontist? I'm afraid what I'm learning as my teeth age (and all my life I had "good" teeth according to dentists) is that those amalgam fillings I had in the 1950s to fill the deep pits before they got decayed will crumble in time and need replacing with larger fillings which weakens the tooth leading to fractures which leads to root canals and crowns and you think you're done, but then those teeth with root canals sometimes develop fractured roots leading to gum issues. I'm awaiting extraction of the first tooth I crowned (in 1983) which later needed a root canal and which has been bothering me off and on for awhile. X-rays at the periodontist showed bone loss under that tooth only - so far the rest of my mouth is ok - but once it gets to that point the only real option is extraction and, depending on its location, an implant = megabucks. We have dental insurance but a large part of it won't be covered and it will take quite a long time from extraction to final implant - maybe 6 months. Anyway, I travel with antibiotics, just in case, and will have it extracted in late October. I hope you have a better experience.
