My sister asked me this and I told her I'd post it here for your
feedback. It's a bit long but I am not going to edit her words.
F.Y.I.: She's 30 y.o..She said this is about the "very last tooth on
the bottom right" so I assume she means #32 unless she has had that
extracted already but I don't think so. In any case, it's now her last
tooth on the bottom right.
Thanks in advance for reading and replying:

"Over a year ago on one of my dental checkups, they noticed that the
gum on one of my teeth is way worse than all the rest of my gums. Mine
all run anywhere from 2mm to 4mm, sometimes 5 or 6 if I have a
flareup.  But this one tooth, they measured as a 9 mm pocket!  And it
happens to be the tooth that i had my first root canal on, about ten
years ago now.  The dentist wanted me to go back to the root canal
guy, to see if perhaps the root filling had become damaged/cracked
etc.  Apparently that could somehow cause your gum to be bad on that
tooth?

But I hate having my teeth worked on. So I put off making the
appointment through 3 more dentists checkups.  I FINALLY made the
appointment and went on Wednesday...

Apparently, I have carried a SLIGHT infection in that tooth ever since
the root canal! Ten years ago!! As in, the root was badly infected
which was what caused me to need the root canal in the first place.
And it just never completely healed up.  So not only has the constant
infection caused me to have a minor amount of bone loss in my jaw in
that immediate area, but it has caused the gum to stay flared up and
the pocket to grow continually larger, since it's working as a
"release" for the mucus etc to come out.

So I was told that I have 2 choices:
1) get the tooth pulled.
My first question to that was, is it going to change my bite down the
road if I get it pulled?  He said no, MOST likely not, because the
tooth in question is the VERY LAST tooth on the bottom right.  He said
that the other teeth should not drift back, and that if anything it
would feel weird only because the top tooth would no longer have
anything to hit against.  He said if it bothered me a lot, I could get
an implant.
My second question was, if the tooth is pulled, is there a guarantee
the infection would go away?  He said absolutely yes.  He said once
the root is gone, after a round or two of antibiotics it would go away
because the root is the cause of all evil. (haha ;-)

Or 2) Try another root canal.  They would remove the top filling, and
then go down into the root and remove all of the root filler.  Then
load me up on antibiotics and see if the infection went away.  It
might go away, and it might not.  He said if it didn't, then I would
have to have teh tooth pulled anyway.  And that they wouldn't charge
for the full root canal, only $250 for the first part of it.  He also
said that first time root canals have about a 90% chance of success.
Second time ones drop down to about 60%.  Not to mention that this
root is particularly difficult anyway, one of them is like a perfectly
shaped backwards "c"...which is why my dentist sent me to this
specialist to begin with.

AND, there's more!  The tooth right in front of this tooth in question
has a very large filling, and this dentist found a hairline crack in
it.  He said it HAS to be crowned, or else I am going to eventually
need a root canal in it too!  :(

The way I read my insurance.... they will pay 50% of whatever I have
done AFTER I meet my $1000 deductible!  Which just sounds insane, and
I need to look into it before I make my final decision.

But at this point, I just really don't know what to do.  Either way is
going to be time consuming and painful, and expensive.  Obviously my
first inclination is to save the tooth.  But if I still have an
infection after THIS long, I kind of think the odds of it going away
now are pretty slim.

So I'm open to any advice you have..."

So she wanted my feedback. I told her I'd probably pull the tooth
since it is way back in the back. When I got implants my dentists told
me I didn't really "need" a tooth way back there.

But as I told her, I am not a dentist. ;-) So I will refer the
question to my friendly dental usenet group. Thanks for all opinions.
Disclaimer: We fully realize you cannot accurately diagnose via
internet, so your "best guess" is okay and any further comments or
questions are welcome.