How are abcesses formed?!
Question:
How are abcesses formed?
I went to have one of my teeth extracted yesterday. NIGHTMARE. I've had a phobia about teeth since my adult teeth arrived. 45 mins into the process, the dentist was having a panic attack because he couldn't get my tooth out due to an abcess. How do they begin? and why doesn't the anaesthetic work when you have them?
Answers:
An abscess may occur when bacteria invades the dental pulp (the nerves and blood vessels that fill the central cavity of the tooth), causing the pulp to die. This most commonly happens as a result of dental caries, which destroy the tooth's enamel and dentin, allowing bacteria to reach the pulp. Bacteria can also gain access to the pulp when a tooth is injured.
Failure to treat an infected dental nerve usually leads to breakdown of the bone around the root with the formation of an abscess or cavity filled with pus.
The abscess is called acute or chronic, depending on how rapidly it forms and how effectively the body defends itself.
An acute abscess is characterized by pain, swelling, and fever.
A chronic abscess may be painless, with the patient completely unaware of its presence even as it continues to grow inside the jawbone. Or the area of infection may be walled off by a fibrous sac, forming a granuloma, which contains non-infectious (sterile) tissue but not pus.
Most of the pathological lesions and tips of roots are granulomas, but it is common practice to refer to all such conditions as abscesses. Since granulomas are usually painless and very slow-growing, they are discovered only by means of dental x-ray examinations. Unless the whole tooth is badly decayed, the tooth can be saved by root canal therapy.