[Nickshu]

Originally Posted by stevej37

Ok...a quick question because we have at least two or more dentists on this thread.

I had an abscessed tooth that showed up as a major swelling of the nearby gum.
It diminished, but my dentist wanted to do a root canal to fix it.
The swelling went completely away and has been gone for 3 years now.

My dentist claims..even though the evidence is gone, and it's been 3 years..it is still there. He said "abscesses never go away"

I have a hard time saying yes to a root canal when I have no pain or signs of trouble.
What do you think? Should I just say 'yes' to the root canal? (He's not sure of which tooth it's under (from the x-rays)..so he is saying it might involve two teeth)

After three years...I am leaning towards not doing it.

Generally what happens there is the nerve/artery/vein inside the tooth is in a "pulpitis" state which causes pain due to inflammation around the still living nerve. If treatment is delayed the associated swelling eventually causes the nerve to die off and become what we refer to as "pulpal necrosis". When this happens the pain goes away, but disease is still present, and the inside of the tooth is filled with now dead tissue. The body then recognizes this as foreign/dead tissue inside body and slowly abscesses the tooth. Sometimes these abscesses never cause pain, as the nerve itself is dead, and they only way they can cause pain is by generating pressure within themselves on the surrounding bone and periodontal ligament. Often they find a path of drainage and fester along for years as a chronic infection until someone catches it on an xray or finds the drainage during a clinical exam. Nowadays we use cone beam CT scans to evaluate any possible abscess that may not show up on a 2 dimensional xray. You would be amazed how many I find on a regular basis.

It would be worth a visit to your dentist to reevaluate this area to see what the status is and if the above is what happened or not.