Without proper treatment, tooth infections can spread to other areas of the body, leading to serious and potentially life threatening complications. A tooth infection, or a tooth abscess, is a ...

A tooth abscess is a collection of pus that forms inside a tooth or its surrounding structures. The abscess itself is one of the later stages of tooth decay, and typically occurs before tooth loss.

"It was bizarre because I had no pain or swelling in my mouth to tell me there was something wrong," Graham Bell said of his cracked tooth Becca Longmire is a digital news writer-reporter at PEOPLE.

The primary treatment for a tooth abscess is always surgical: drainage, root canal, or extraction. Antibiotics alone cannot cure an abscess because they can’t remove the source of the infection.