I Chipped My Molar, What Do I Do?

Two-part question: 1. Chipped molar: what will be done? 2. Price: how much am I looking at here?

• Okay, the tooth is specifically the "first molar, upper teeth." I had a root canal done on this tooth more than ten years ago. Metal filling was put in to fill the hole and no crown was placed over it (for whatever reason; don't ask me now why since I can't remember back ten years, you animal). I chewed on for years in blissful ignorance. Tonight, I was eating popcorn and, as usual when eating popcorn, I was chewing on the burnt kernels. I felt like I was biting into something really hard that I couldn't chew away at like the kernels and I just spit it out. I come to find out that a small piece of tooth chipped off. Size? It's about the size of three pinheads combined. Now, none of the filling was included. A closer inspection with a mirror stuck into my mouth revealed the chipped piece of tooth came from the side of the tooth itself.

• Answer:

  Two options... 1. The Cheap Way to Fix it for Now Just ask about a patch job with silver filling. This will not be the last thing you do for this tooth, but it will cost in the $80-150 range and get you through for a while. 2. The Right Way to Fix it for a Long Time Back teeth that have had root canal treatment really need to be protected with a crown. Otherwise, they tend to crack and break in ways that often leave the tooth unrestorable. You would first need a core to fill in the center of the tooth with a strong material, if that was not done when you got the original filling after your root canal was done. This could cost a couple hundred bucks. Then, you need a crown over top of everything. You would probably want a porcelain-fused-to-metal (preferably fused-to-gold) crown, because it is so visible in your smile. This would cost from $700-1,000 or a little more, depending on where you live and the dentist's individual fee profile.