Question:
Can someone, anyone, please tell me what becomes of an untreated
abcessed tooth?
Answer:
It gets worse, the infection can spread, ultimately causing the
patient to assume room temperature.
It hurts like hell for one thing but I would guess that you already knew
that.
Since it is an infection you can safely assume that anything that happens
to the body during an active infection will take place with a "hot tooth".
Including death.
I was doing a paper on dental problems
and needed some comments about this specific problem. I also requested
a tooth extractor for a demo (I did obtain one from a private party).
I am aware of systemic infections that could evolve due to an
abcessed tooth, however, I was curious to know if, having survived the
infection, the tooth would continue to cause problems or fall out
completely.
An abscessed tooth is so usually because of decay that has entered the
living part of the tooth (pulp). Bacteria set up housekeeping and make a
lot of baby bacteria that grow up and start all over again. (This
progresses rapidly dependent on the resistance of the host. Hence some
people get swollen quickly some slowly, and some not at all. Sometimes if
the pus has found an escape route as in a fistula thru the gum or into
the sinus, the pus drains and the pain is not as severe (pain is from
pressure of pus building up with no place to go). But lest i digress, the
bacteria that caused the abscess does not care if the tooth is alive or
'dead' and continues to use it and the plague around it as a food source
and the decay will continue until there is not tooth left or the pain
gets so severe an accomodating dentist treats same with a root canal or
applies sunshine to the root (extraction).
The abscessed tooth needs treatment of the
cause of the infection mainly the necrotic "dead" pulp "nerve". If this
is not cleaned and sealed the infection will continually come back.
