Post and core in Medellín

If you have been told you need a post and core, there are two things worth knowing before the price. The first is that most people searching for “post” mean something else entirely.

Two different things are called a post

A titanium post placed in the jawbone, to replace a tooth that is gone. That is a dental implant. It is what most English-speaking patients mean when they say post, and if it is what you meant, dental implants are here.

A small post cemented inside the root of a tooth you still have, to help hold a crown after root canal treatment. That is a post and core, and that is what this page is about.

They are not variations of the same treatment. One replaces a missing tooth; the other rescues one you still have. Being told the wrong price for the wrong one is a bad way to start.

What replaces a post and core today

After root canal treatment a tooth is hollow where the nerve used to be, and usually missing structure through whatever caused the problem. Something has to rebuild it before a crown goes on.

In most cases that is a core build-up: the missing part is rebuilt with modern adhesive materials that bond to what is left of your tooth. From $500,000 COP per tooth, depending on how much has to be rebuilt.

No post involved. Adhesive materials have replaced the post and core in very nearly every case, and we place one only occasionally now, when a tooth genuinely gives us nothing else to anchor to.

If you were quoted a post and core elsewhere, it is a fair question to ask whether a core build-up would do.

Why post and core fell out of favour

Here is the part that surprises almost everyone: a post adds no strength to a tooth.

It is not a reinforcing bar. Its only job is retention — giving the core something to anchor into, so the crown has something to sit on.

And placing one costs you something: dentine has to be drilled out of the root to make space for it. So a post can leave a root slightly more vulnerable than it was, while adding nothing to its strength.

Once materials existed that bond to the tooth instead of wedging into it, the case for posts largely disappeared. That is the whole story, and it is why your grandparents have posts and you probably will not.

When an implant is the better answer

Sometimes the honest recommendation is neither a post and core nor a core build-up, but not rebuilding the tooth at all.

If too little sound tooth remains above the gum, it can be rebuilt and crowned, but the result stands on very little and can fracture at the root. When that happens the tooth is usually lost anyway, and you have paid for the restoration first.

In those cases the better advice is to remove the tooth and place an implant. It costs more at the start, and it is the recommendation that keeps you from paying twice.

We would rather say that at the examination than after.

What a post and core costs

	COP per tooth
Core build-up	from $500,000
Crown on top, zirconia or lithium disilicate	from $2,500,000

The core build-up figure depends on how much of the tooth has to be rebuilt, which is decided from the examination and the X-ray, not from a photograph or a phone call.

A rebuilt tooth almost always needs a crown over it afterwards, so the two figures usually go together. How the crown itself works — the materials, the laboratory days and what a bridge costs if more than one tooth is involved.

Prices are in Colombian pesos. We quote in pesos because the exchange rate moves — you can check today’s rate.