When a tooth has been badly damaged by decay or injury, it usually means that the pulp of the tooth where the nerve tissue is located was affected. Many times dentists are able to save such a tooth through a root canal procedure. There are some cases in which the damage experienced is too vast for that procedure to be effective, though, and in those cases our LA dentist must extract the tooth. A very loose tooth is another example of a tooth that is sometimes possible to save, but other times the only option is to extract it.
There are also reasons that are not related to trauma or decay. For people getting braces, some teeth may need to be extracted in order to properly move the other teeth into alignment. Wisdom teeth are often extracted, as they can become impacted, cause infections, or mess up the alignment of adjacent teeth. Certain cancer drugs may also unfortunately cause infections in the teeth because they tend to weaken the immune system. Since the body is not able to fight off the infection in this scenario, our Los Angeles dental extraction dentist must remove the tooth.