What You Should Know About A Dental Abscess

A dental abscess is a phrase that is enough to place most people into a state of visible panic and the reason for this is quite simple: it happens to be one of the most intense and severe complications that can affect the mouth. Not only is an abscess an extremely painful and dehabilitating condition, but it also happens to be one that carries with it the very real risk of very serious complications and so if left untreated, a dental abscess can actually prove to be life-threatening as the pus contained within it, then spreads to the brain.

What is a dental abscess?

In short, a dental abscess can be summed up as being an excessive deposit of pus that deposits itself around the roots of a tooth in the mouth, and where the pus then has a directly painful and inhibiting effect on the tooth by virtue of the inflammation it causes.

Who is at an increased risk of developing the condition?

It is important to appreciate and be aware that some people are at a higher than normal risk of developing the condition and specifically, people whose autoimmune system has been weakened or otherwise impaired in some manner due to the effects of some health complaint such as chemotherapy, HIV/ADS, and the removal of the spleen face a much higher risk of acquiring the condition.

Recent studies which have been carried out to determine those who are especially at risk of developing the condition have identified that diabetic sufferers are more vulnerable to the condition.

I have a dental abscess. What should I do?

First and foremost, the first step should be to make contact with your dentist’s office and be explicit in explaining that you are currently suffering from a dental abscess. In order to treat the effects of the abscess you may wish to try painkillers and anti-inflammatory medication to try and bring the symptoms under control. However, there are no guarantees that these will eliminate the pain, after all, they will not actually tackle the root cause: which just so happens to be the pus contained within the tooth.