How does a root canal treat an abscessed tooth?
A “root canal” is the treatment used to treat and save a tooth that is abscessed. Your dentist first will administer antibiotics to kill the bacteria causing the infection of the abscessed tooth. However, the source of the infection must still be removed. So your dentist will need to drill into the infected tooth or gum to drain the infectious pus. Your dentist will then want to evaluate what damaged has been in tooth’s interior pulp. The pulp is the soft tissue that holds the blood vessels, nerves and connective tissue and extends from the tooth’s crown down to the root within the jaw bone. While before it was almost certain that an abscessed tooth would need to be removed, today, a dentist can do a root canal treatment to remove the infected pulp and save the tooth. If however, the exam reveals that the interior is beyond repair, the dentist will skip a root canal and instead remove, or extract, the tooth.
