Infected tooth

[Davina]

Hiya

I have a lower front tooth that has become infected over the past few days. A few days ago, I noticed a big swelling around my chin and nasty yellow looking stuff came out when I pressed a little on the gum there.

My dentist says that its an infected tooth and has given me antibiotics today and has recommended root canal filling for this tooth. But surely if the tooth is infected, antibiotics should get rid of the infection, so I would like to know why I need to have root canal treatment?

[Dr Mohsen J. Esfahani]

Thank you for your post.

If a tooth becomes infected, its usually an indication that the pulp chamber of a tooth has become infected. The pulp chamber is usually an enclosed chamber in the middle of the tooth within which nerves and blood supplies lie.

If this chamber becomes infected, the only way to clear all the infected tissue within that chamber is to mechanically and chemically remove the necrotic tissue from that chamber and irrigate the tooth during root canal treatment.

So antibiotics alone are not going to be able to remove the dead and infected tissue within the tooth and root canal treatment would be necessary.