Abscess tooth, How Does a Dentist Drain it ?

tooth abscessSo what is an abscess tooth

An abscess tooth is actually termed an odontogenic (tooth)  infection. A abscess tooth usually starts as a result of a decayed tooth, the decay which contains bacteria slowly eats away at the tooth and breaks down its structure. Soon enough the bacteria will progress deep enough into the nerves and blood vessels of the tooth termed the pulp of the tooth. Once inside it will start to spread like how a normal infection spreads when a gaping open wound is left untreated. The infection will slowly tract inside the pulp chamber of the tooth and cause the pulp of the tooth to die and become abscessed. This abscess tooth or pus will eventually tract and spread to infect the jaw bone. Clinically an abscess is a thick walled cavity pus. It is well localized or confined in the thick wall of the jaw bone or gum tissue.

abscess toothAbscess tooth symptoms

Once the abscess tooth infection spreads beyond the jaw bone and out into the gum tissues, the patient will usually feel more relief and less pain. This is due to the decreased pressure that the pus abscess was putting in the jaw bone. When the abscess tooth tract out from the jaw bone and out to the surface of the gum tissues, a little opening can be seen, from that opening there is usually a white cheesy looking material coming out from the opening. This is actually the abscess or pus which is draining out. The pus usually contains high amount of bacteria, dead immune cells, dead tissue cells and protein like fluids.

These are the common abscess tooth symptoms which are commonly linked to a tooth infection:

  • rubor, redness is seen when the infection of the tooth is close to the surface of the tissue due to the enlargement of the blood vessels.
  • tumor, swelling results from pus collection, sometimes if the infection from the abcess spreads, it can cause abscess lymph node tooth symptoms whereby the lymp nodes become swollen.
  • calor, heat as a result of inflow of blood that contains immune cells which help clear up the abscess.
  • dolor, pain as a result from pus accumulating and distending the nearby nerves elliciting a painful reaction. Pain is also felt due to histamines which are released by the body as a reaction to combat the bacteria infection stimulating toxicity to the nerve endings.
  • functio laesa , loss of function like difficulty in chewing , swallowing and breathing. The muscles involved are also reacting to the pain.

tooth abscess

abscess picture tooth

Abscess tooth treatment

There are usually 3 modes of treatment for an abscess tooth:

  1. The first being, the extraction of the involved decayed tooth. This is done because the main source or culprit of the infection has to be removed first. A less radical way would be to remove the nerve and blood vessels from the tooth by doing a root canal therpy. These are the most important thing that should be done for abscess tooth treatment.
  2. The second is for the dentist to perform an incision and drainage procedure. Most patients usually get scared when they hear this because they associate it with pain. The truth of the matter is that , the moment incision is done and the pus is drained out ; the patient will feel immediate relief because the pus is no longer pressing on the nerve and giving pain. So how does a dentist drain an abscess tooth ? Before the procedure starts , the dentist will inject a local anesthetic solution around the tissue area to numb it. The incision is usually a small one performed with a small scalpel. It is directed at the most swollen are of the gum. Once the area is incised, the pus will drain out and it is left open to continue draining by itself. By removing the pus which consist of bacteria, the tooth and gum tissues will start healing by itself.
  3. The last mode of treatment is the prescription of antibiotics to the patient. The abscess antibiotic tooth mostly prescribed are penicillin v and metronidazole. It is not always necessary to take antibiotics unless certain signs and symptoms of an abscess tooth presents itself. For example, patient elicits signs of fever, general toxicity, infection is suspected to be deep in the tissues or the drainage of pus can only be done partially.

Abscess home remedy tooth

To be honest, there is no home remedy for an abscess tooth, sometimes patients take some home remedy prescription and they feel the get better. Most of the time, the abscess tooth has tract out into the gums and the pain is gone. This will eventually become a long standing infection and may not show any symptoms until it reach a serious stage which is the abscess complicated tooth stage. This should not be taken lightly as it can be fatal if the abscess  is allowed to spreads throughout the whole body via the blood vessels. The best tooth abscess tooth relief is to visit a dentist as soon as possible and take paracetamol to relief the pain.

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