A dental abscess is a collection of pus in the mouth, jaw or face enclosed within a pocket of tissue casued by a bacterial infection.

There are 3 main types of dental abscess, being gingival, periodontal and pariapical. Gingival only affects the gum whilst the other two affect all structures, pariapical is the most common and starts in the dental pulp and periodontal inthe supporting structures such as bone.

What are the symptoms?
There are many symptoms the most predominant being severe toothache, toothache can begin as a slight pain but can quickly change into a throbbing high intensity pain. Other symptoms include swelling at the base of the tooth, on the gum, swelling of the face, fever and the affected tooth may even become loose.

What is the treatment?
See your dentist!! Your dentist will most likely drain the pus from the abscess which nearly always brings great relief to the symptoms. A gum abscess will be simply lanced whilst a pariapical will need a hole drilled in the tooth. A pariapical abscess will need a root canal to clean out all the bacteria and preserve the tooth, whilst the other two types of abscess will have the infected pocket cleaned out so that it heals properly. Rarely are antibiotics prescribed but in some cases it maybe before you can visit the dentist so stop it from getting worse, however antibiotics will not remove pus from an abscess.

What causes an abscess?
Periapical abscess is the most common type and is usually due to tooth decay, tooth breakdown can allow bacteria to reach the tooth pulp which causes an infection. Periodontal abscesses are caused generally by gum disease, gum disease causes inflamation and infection of the gum which can cause the gum to detach from the tooth creating a pocket for bacteria to enter and cause an infection turning it into an abscess.