Tooth trouble

[ChubbyChecker]

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the filling in one of my teeth is going black. Of course the first thing I did when realising this was go on the internet to find out what it means. My Google skills came up wanting though and I didn´t find anything of real substance. So plan B was to go to a dentist to see what he´d say.

I was in Peru at the time though and didn´t want some Andean witch doctor poking around in my mouth; so I decided to wait until I got somewhere more civilised before getting checked out.

I´m in Santiago (Chile) now and went to the dentist a couple of days ago. He X rayed me and turns out that the tooth´s root is kind of dying (decaying, dissolving, something like that) which is what has turned the filling black. This isn´t too surprising for me because the tooth is a milk tooth (I already knew this).

According to the Santiagan dentist that I spoke to the tooth will eventually need to be removed but not for a long time, years in fact. He said that the filling is also fine and doesn´t need replacing.

My mate who I´m travelling with reckons I might need a root canal to kill off the tooth and be able to leave it in my mouth.

So my question is, do any of you have experience with anything like this? I´m not averse to having a root canal but I hear it´s a pretty big operation, one I don´t really want to have while in South America. I´m going to be in New Zealand in mid November and Australia six weeks after that so I could try and get one in one of those countries. Or I could wait til I get back to England, in 11 months time.

[Mzyxptlk]

Do you drink a lot of coffee?