Thx everyone for your advice. Just to clarify, RAS has over two months clean and plans on staying that way. Which makes a big diff in how much to invest in his teeth. Also, hopefully he will get a job with dental insurance of some kind. I know that normally dental ins. only pays about half of crowns or root canals so it's still alot of money.
This tooth is one of the upper front teeth so going for the root canal at $600 now and figure the rest out later when he gets a job. Hopefully, the crown can wait that long :-)
Helpus, your idea sounds like the most logical and cost efficient, but at only 30 yrs. old, I hate to recommend the denture route quite yet.
He insists that crack destroyed his teeth...something about it being acidic? I dunno. But then his dental hygiene did go out the window with his addiction, too.
What I don't understand is why good dental care costs so much money these days. They can do a complete root canal on a front tooth (single canal) in half hour....but they want $600 for it! That's $1200 and hour! There's no hidden costs like with caps or bridgework, so that's just pure profit for them. It's also the same amount of time that they would spend on a $90 filling....doesn't make sense.
My Aunt goes to a local school of dentistry to get all her dental work done, so that's another idea for him to think about.
Wish I had access to a dental office...I could do all of the root canals myself...and probably better than the dentist...hehe! When I first started as an endodontic dental assistant, I used to be able to work on patients myself, with no supervision...but so much has changed since then. I even worked for one dentist that would prep the cavity, then turn it over to me to plug and carve the amalgam filling. He could get sued for that today :-)
I still keep up my dental radiologic license, but even with that, dentists still don't like me looking at the x-rays. In my experience, most dentists have god complexes. And all dental assts. should be given "medals of courage".
:-)
Thx again! SM