Everything You Need To Know About Dental Abscesses

Lakecia Hammond
Zentist
2 min readSep 27, 2017

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There’re no sunflowers and butterflies in the land of dental abscesses — it’s a painful, feverish infection. The good part? It’s treatable.

Dental Abscesses don’t come out of nowhere. Usually, a dental abscess or tooth abscess is an accumulation of pus that forms inside the teeth or gums. Since the infection is severe, when not treated and under the wrong circumstances, a dental abscess can even lead to death. How? It has the power to spread the infection to the throat causing it to swell bad enough to suffocate.

Let’s take a deeper look at the two types of the infection:

One is periapical abscess, the most frequently occurring kind and begins in the dental pulp. A periodontal abscess is one that starts in bones or other tissues surrounding teeth. When this happens, fluid will generally collect in this soft gum tissue and let’s just say it’s pretty painful.

Cavities that aren’t treated are the cause of these abscesses where it continues to sink deep into the tooth structure. Finally, the pulp tissue inside the root becomes infected, dies, then worsens the infection.

Another possible cause of a dental abscess is having cracks in teeth or periodontal disease. Regardless of the causes the extent of the dental abscess has the possibility of becoming very widespread.

Treating Dental Abscesses

Once you’ve gotten to the dentist, there are two traditional treatments before serious issues emerge. The first one being an extraction of the tooth. The second is a root canal which is the combination of a pulp removal then a root filling. The whole process requires at least two office visits with a specialist called an endodontist. The second appointment usually is needed to place a cap on the treated tooth.

Pain relievers and antibiotics will help the pain but unfortunately, patients should brace themselves for this one and done treatment. Remember, when not treated the abscess can spread and cause more serious problems.

Cost of Dental Abscesses

The typical cost of a dental abscess is around $1,500 and many dental or health plans will only pay a percentage of the dental abscess treatment. This is why it’s important to have an affordable, quality dental treatment plan trusted by hundreds of people in the Bay Area.

Zentist is an a la carte dental treatment platform that matches Bay Area residents with the right dentist, at a fraction of the market cost. In addition to dental abscess treatment, Zentist offers affordable dental implants costs so you can stop searching ‘dental care near me.’

If you need more information or think it’s time you saw the dentist before problems arise, book with Zentist.io.

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