Dr. Katie To explains how untreated root canal infections can trigger systemic inflammation and heart attacks. Upper-jaw root canals often drain into the sinus, causing chronic sinusitis. Before extracting a treated tooth, get a 3D CBCT scan and have a certified radiologist review it, not just your dentist.
A lot of patients actually end up with heart attack because the body cannot handle that much inflammation all at once. So we evaluate root canal before we even, because I've seen a lot of conversation on social media, right? They reach out to us and say, I had a root canal, can I just take it out now? I don't want this in my head. First of all, you need to look at it on a 3D CBCT because we need to know where it's located. Is that next to the sinus? Because a lot of this infection been draining. Every time we got our root canals out on the upper jaw, it's connected to sinus. And patient have chronic sinus infection, the ENT, the joint specialist, and they keep saying like, It's in your head. It's in their head, but it's not in the right area. They look in the wrong area. So, gotta have to look at CBCT. And if the dentist take a CBCT, they have to send to a certified radiologist to look at it because the scan capture the whole head. We only trained to read the teeth. What if you having tumor in your brain? We're not gonna know how to read it. You got to get read by a radiologist.
