How to treat a dental abscess?

Determine cause...: .. From a necrotic nerve or from a periodontal defect? Once you determine the cause of your problem, then you can treat it effectively. Since you may not be able to personally determine the cause, my advice would be to call a local dentist for an appointment. They're trained to diagnose and treat these problems.

Need a dentist!: Don't mess around with an abscessed tooth or gum. It is infection and the longer you wait or try to treat on your own, it can spread into the other tissues, muscles and blood stream, see a dentist asap.

See your dentist: Dental infection will not resolve on its own with home care. The most common type of the dental infection is a tooth or combination of both tooth-gum infection. In order to get appropriate treatment it is important to know the underlying cause for this infection. Rec.: see your dentist for evaluation, x-rays and treatment.

Drain & Treat: An abscess in an active infection and must be eliminated as it is feeding the blood stream with bacteria to go everywhere the blood stream goes. Either the tooth needs to be removed or the infectious canal (home of the tooth nerve and blood vessel) needs to be cleaned out (root canal treatment). The infection area needs to be drained then an antibiotic may help.

With a dentist: This is usually approached with a combination of surgical drainage and antibiotics. Do not ignore it. The complications, although not common, can be disastrous.

Go to a dentist: Can need an extraction or root canal therapy, but need to see a dentist asap.

See your dentist: A dental abscess can be related to decay and/or a periodontal problem/ recommendations for treatment will depend on what type of abscess you have.