How much dental work can I have done in one sitting?

Dr. Hall,
I need a lot of work on my teeth. I need over 7 root canals, I have a few cavities, one tooth needs to be shortened and my teeth need to be whitened. I would like to have most of this done at once, how much work can be done in one sitting?
– Lisa in New Jersey

Lisa,
There’s a lot of variation from dentist to dentist as far as how much work they’ll get done in one sitting. You have to ask the individual dentist.

The dentists who will do the most work in one sitting will be those who do sedation dentistry. You can find listings of sedation dentists if you do a Google search on sedation dentist.

If you want a New Jersey cosmetic dentist who can also do sedation dentistry, I’d recommend Dr. Joel Singer. He is up just outside Manhattan, which is at the other end of the state, but if the appearance is important to you, you’re going to have to go that far. If your tooth whitening is not complicated, and there isn’t other work on front teeth, you could have a general dentist do that.

If you don’t want to go with sedation dentistry, then it partly depends on your endurance ability. If dentistry doesn’t make you uncomfortable at all, then you could probably do a four-hour appointment in one sitting, and if your dentist can work fast, then you can get a lot done.

If your seven root canal treatments are on front teeth, then a general dentist or a cosmetic dentist who does root canals could get them done in one appointment. If they are on molars, and it’s important to you to get them done in as few appointments as possible, I’d go to an endodontist (a root canal specialist), as they work much more quickly than non-specialists. It can take a general dentist one and a half to two hours to do a molar root canal, where a specialist will get the whole thing done in an hour, easily.
– Dr. Hall