Ludwig's Angina

Ben Hadad

I am sitting here at home with a humongously fat chin and a Desperate Dan sized jaw on one side of my face. I'm afraid to go asleep in case it deteriorates any further as it seemingly can block my airwaves. I went to my dentist this morning with a tooth abscess when it was only a little bump under my jaw. He just gave me a prescription for medronidazole for the infection and told me to come back in a week. It has since deteriorated markedly.

I'm going to to call back into him first thing in the morning, but if it gets any worse I'm going to the hospital.

I was originally going to get a root canal done, however at this stage I'm thinking of getting it out ASAP, as hopefully the infection can heal quicker.

Does anyone have any experience of this?

The Internet Explorer

I think if I remember correctly, I had a similar problem a few years back. After visiting the rootcanalist, I decided it just wasn't worth it for me. Sounded slightly painful to be honest. So I got that mother****** ripped the **** out.

If I was you, I'd get it taken out. But that's your call. If you really don't want to lose the tooth you should seriously consider getting the work done. If you can afford to lose the tooth, then you know what you have to do.

The Internet Explorer

I'm remembering more here.......it's coming back to me..............

I think I should add, that while my mouth was quite swollen due to an unfortunate abcess, my abcess actually disappeared after using antibiotics and it may have been a couple of weeks after that, that I got said tooth extracted.

Oral Surgeon

GET TREATMENT NOW

An abscess increasing in size in this region can be very serious
Warning signs;
increasing very quickly
difficulty swallowing
difficultly breathing
inability to open the mouth atall
signs of systemic infection, high temperatrure, rigors, vomiting etc...

What dose of metronidazole are you taking? If this is as bad as you say, I would respectively suggest that you need to be on a penicillin based antibiotic aswell (if not allergic)

OS

Ben Hadad

I'm on 400mg. I agree this appears to be more serious than the dentist may have realised. I am about to go back into him now. I now have a bit of a lisp and swallowing is getting painful.