Cyst

[traumaanxiety]

I finally plucked up the courage to see the dentist after 5 years with an abscess. He's done an xray and said there is a cyst where the infection is. He said hes sending the xray to a specialist to see if they think it needs specialist treatment or whether he can do it in the dental office. I asked so many times if its life threatening, cancer etc and he said no but I cannot get the thought of cancer out my head.
I didnt even know you could get a cyst like this. Im so terrified now.
Whats likely to happen now? I asked all of this but my head was whirling so much ive hust forgotten everything he said.

 

[Gordon]

It's not cancerous.

To put things as simply as I can, in this case it's because there has been a chronic abscess. Your body has got fed up dealing with the infection and has built a sort of wall round it to keep it in situ and stop bacteria getting into your bloodstream.
Occasionally tt doesn't work particularly well and the cystic area will gradually grow larger. Gradually pushing other teeth around and in extreme cases actually weakening the jaw bone enough that you can get a fracture.

Removing the tooth would most likely get rid of the whole thing, but if you want to keep the tooth then sometimes if you remove the source of the infection by doing a root canal then it'll spontaneously heal, other times you'd need to do the root canal and then clean out the cyst area surgically.

 

[traumaanxiety]

That makes total sense. Thank you for taking the time to reply.
He did say he thinks a root canal would have around an 80% chance of being successful. I think I would just rather have the offending tooth/teeth taken out.
He said he will wait for the specialist to get back and then theyll decide how to treat it.
If I do have to see the specialist, is it a case of removing the teeth then cleaning the socket out? Or is it more intrusive than that?
He mentioned cutting the gum and cleaning it out, is that necessary if I have the tooth out?
Sorry for all my questions, you must get so fed up with repeating yourself! I have tried to look through the threads to find my answers but cant find anything that fits.
Anyway thanks for your time i really appreciate it!

 

[Gordon]

If I do have to see the specialist, is it a case of removing the teeth then cleaning the socket out? Or is it more intrusive than that?

Usually just removing the tooth will sort it, depends a bit on the size of the cyst.

He mentioned cutting the gum and cleaning it out, is that necessary if I have the tooth out?

Not normally, no. Again depends on the size of the cystic area.