Recurring Abscess

About six months ago, I had a toothache and eventually I developed an abscess, more of the gingival variety apparently. I went in to my dentist and he put me Clindimycin. The regimen of antibiotic did the trick. I returned to the dentist soon after to see what's going on. Well, it turns out I have what's called a 'lingual defect' on tooth # 10. This pretty much means my tooth has some sort of defect on the back side of it that allows bacteria to thrive under the gum. This has caused a rather significant periodontal pocket that's around 8mm deep, which is bad.

Anyway, the dentist isn't sure if the tooth can be saved or not, so he referred me to a periodontist to see if a root canal could save the tooth or if it has to be extracted (probably the latter). Unfortunately, I couldn't get in the periodontist for a few months. This was back in May.

A couple of weeks ago I developed another abscess in the same spot. So the doc put me on the same antibiotic again. This time around, after the course of antibiotics, the infection didn't fully resolve, but it did clear up significantly. I went back in to the doc and he thought it would be best to just wait the three weeks till my periodontal appointment (Apparently it's bad to be on antibiotics all the time) since the abscess appeared to be localized and not particularly bad; strangely enough, the abscess was painless this time around. However, he said if things start getting bad he can call in another prescription.

Now a week has passed and it does seem to be slowly swelling up again and it's two weeks till my periodontal appointment. I'm not sure if I should call in the antibiotic anyway, or just try and tough it out....

Anyone have any thoughts? Can abscesses just stay localized? I'm afraid the infection will spread and become life-threatening; although neither abscess had become systemic....yet

[Jerome Tsang, DDS]

Another prescription of antibiotics may be needed, but a different kind than what you took at first so as not to overlap the same drug and develop a resistance to the antibiotic.  There's no way to get an earlier appointment to the periodontist?

[Jrad23]

Unfortunately, no. Where I live, periodontists are apparently in very short supply - I actually have to drive 2 hours to see this one.

At any rate, I'll just wait till Monday and see how things look. I suppose if it's still worrying me, I'll have them call me in another prescription.