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I'm Dr. Joe Neely, and I practice with the Barton Oaks Dental group. We're going to talk
about, what is an abscessed tooth? An abscess in any part of the body is simply an infection
that's being contained or restrained by structures. In the case of a tooth, the tooth sits, is
encased in bone with a thin sock like ligament that holds the tooth to the bone. The gum
attaches into the neck of the tooth, and so an abscess around the gum in the tooth would
be an infection that is up under the gum, under the attachment of the gum to the tooth
that's being held in place by the gum tissue. Gum tissue will swell because it is flexible,
but if it, if the attachment of the gum to the tooth is still intact, there will be pressure
from that abscess. When that attachment is lost, that abscess can drain, and even though
there may be some mild pain after that, it will not be intense until such time that the
abscess overwhelms your immune system. An abscess tooth typically, the infection is
trapped in the ligament space between the hard tooth and the hard bone. A very, very
small amount of infection can create an intense amount of pressure. Therefore, pain.