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Abscess tooth - on antibiotics - what do I do??

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Rebecca9380

Junior member
Joined
Dec 16, 2012
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1
Okay - brief background. I went without dental insurance for years, therefore never saw a dentist. Well, I ended up getting medicaid which just started covering dental. Before I got a chance to go into a dentist, I ended up with massive tooth pain. Went into a Dental Dreams which has long hours (weekends, late nights) and takes walk ins. They gave me pain med and scheduled me to come back for an extraction. I didn't know at the time with an abscess if you don't do antibiotics, the novocane won't numb you. So I go back, insist to the dentist that I can feel what she is doing while trying to pull the tooth, she says I'm nuts, keeps trying until I scream for her to stop. This put a fear in me and I never went back to finish the tooth (which part of it broke off, but the other half is there and in no pain, so I've left it be).

Well, I had a different tooth chip and you can clearly see the nerve is exposed, it's painful. I am on medicaid so all dentist here that take medicaid (aside from the one who put the fear in me) are not scheduling until after the New Year. So, I sucked it up and tried to wait, using motrin to help me get through times when painful.

Wednesday night the pain had spread to my ear, so I decided Thursday AM to go to the Urgent Care and get some antibiotics. After a day on antibiotics, my face puffed out, the pain subsided, but the infection came to a head at the gum under the tooth. A day and a half after starting antibiotics, the abscess started draining into my mouth, gross, but relief came instantly. Well, it stopped draining and is still there, swollen and puffy, but not much pain really. Seems after throughout the day with antibiotics, the swelling goes down, however, by the morning after not taking antibiotics for 8 to 10 hours, it's puffed again.

I'm on 500mg of amoxicylin, 4 times a day, however, to be honest, I've taken more than I should because when I took more, it seemed to bring it to a head faster.

I have to return to work tomorrow after being off 2 days (no pay) for this. With Christmas coming up, I can't afford to miss a bunch more time off of work with no pay for all of this. Not to mention it's year end, I have things to do at work and 2 toddlers at home that need mommy to be able to care for them.

So, I guess I'm curious, if I continue the antibiotics, should this abscess go away? Will I need the tooth pulled to really clear this up completely? My insurance only covers extractions or fillings, no root canals. I was hoping to push this back until tax refund to get the root canal, but if I can't then I will have to get the tooth pulled, it's my only option at this point.

I'm going to have to go back to the dentist that seriously scarred me and suck it up because it's my only option to fix this before the holidays and they have night hours where I can go Friday night to get the tooth pulled if necessary and then have the weekend before Christmas to recover.

I'm just not sure really at this point, if what's going to happen with antibiotics has happened. Is this as good as it's going to get with being on antibiotics or if they'll need to put me on something stronger than just amoxicylin before any work can be done.

Any one have any advice? I'll come back if you need more info. I'm on the amoxicylin, 500mg four times a day, but again have taken more the first 2 days, and then I have motrin 800mg and tramadol 50mg for pain management, which it's not been really painful. I just had hoped that since I started the amoxicylin on Thursday that by today the swelling would have gone down, it's going into the 4th day. I will go into the dentist tomorrow night after work, even though it scares me to death to go back there after my extraction experience with them, they are dentist and will give me an idea of how to proceed going forward.

It's sad, I never had a fear of the dentist. I had great dental care growing up, best insurance around, and had braces and went to the dentist all the time, but now that I'm an adult, alot of fillings from when I was a teen are coming loose and needing to be redone. I'm just terrified to go to the dentist to get this fixed.... but I don't want to be puffy and swollen on Christmas, not being able to eat and all this. I'd like to get this handled ASAP, which means going to the dentist that scarred me since they are open nights and weekends and I can go back in after work this week.......

Sorry, I'm rambling, but any help? Advice?
 
Hello. I'm terribly sorry you're going through this. To answer your question, using the antibiotics alone will not take care if the problem. As long as the source of the infection (the tooth) is in there, the infection will come back after the corse of antibiotics is over. But if you have been on antibiotics the anesthetic should work better this time around.
 
Hiya. I'm goin through the same pain with my mouth at the moment. I have has my abscessed tooth removed last Friday after antibiotics wasn't really doing much. And the anaesthetic did work on me. My dentist did tell me it may not numb the area that well with the infection being there but I never felt a thing. She made sure she have me more anaesthetic and left it 20 mins before doing anything. I am however still in pain from one of my teeth on the extracted side so I'm back today to get X-ray to see what's happening.

Hope u get it sorted soon.
 
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