Sometimes, despite our best efforts, teeth just go bad. The above pictures show a tooth with a type of autoimmune disease known as internal resorption.
For reasons that are unclear, cells inside the tooth start actively destroying surrounding tooth structure and lead to the ultimate failure of the tooth. Sometimes it happens quickly, sometimes it takes years. The above patient had monitored this tooth for many years until it became painful. After taking a CT x ray we determined that there was sufficient bone to remove the tooth, place the implant, and bone graft the surrounding area at the same time.
Although doing all these procedures is not always the norm, it was indicated in this case as the patient is experiencing the upper teeth supraerupting, or moving down. Completing all of these procedures at one time minimized patient discomfort and sped up healing time to 6 months instead of twelve. As a result, the upper teeth will have less time to supraerupt resulting in a better final crown and one happy patient.
