A crown is when the cavity is too big to just fill - filling it would break the tooth, since there would be more filling than cavity. So they make a little hat for the tooth and fit it over, basically like a cap, sealing the whole thing (they file the tooth down so it fits tightly, and shape it like a tooth. They make tooth-colored ones, but old-skool this is what a "gold tooth" is.) You can get a crown if you break a tooth, too.
Root canal is if the root is infected, they can either do a root canal (or in kids, Dr. Google tells me, a pulpectomy, which is a little more short-term while you wait for the tooth to fall out on its own schedule), which kills the nerves but saves the tooth, or pull the tooth. With front baby teeth they seem to often pull them (one does see 3-4 year olds with missing front teeth pretty often). This is a baby molar which will be lost but not until she's 10-12. (It's two, the same tooth on each side). Can't really pull it because things would move around in ways that would be negative for the adult teeth developing in that area, and can't wait it out since it could be there another 6 years and have the chance to get infected.
Apparently they can't know if she'll need root canals until they get in there, so there's a decent chance it won't come to that. Certainly she's not currently visibly infected, abscessed, or in pain.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-02-04 02:15 am (UTC)Root canal is if the root is infected, they can either do a root canal (or in kids, Dr. Google tells me, a pulpectomy, which is a little more short-term while you wait for the tooth to fall out on its own schedule), which kills the nerves but saves the tooth, or pull the tooth. With front baby teeth they seem to often pull them (one does see 3-4 year olds with missing front teeth pretty often). This is a baby molar which will be lost but not until she's 10-12. (It's two, the same tooth on each side). Can't really pull it because things would move around in ways that would be negative for the adult teeth developing in that area, and can't wait it out since it could be there another 6 years and have the chance to get infected.
Apparently they can't know if she'll need root canals until they get in there, so there's a decent chance it won't come to that. Certainly she's not currently visibly infected, abscessed, or in pain.