Most often, people will concentrate on the thought of getting the shot, which will only magnify the pain. Something that normally doesn t hurt, can get a lot worse simply by thinking in your mind that it will be painful. In most cases, the numbing shots will work very well with one or two applications. This bacteria will eventually spread from the root of the dead tooth into the tissue that is below and create a pocket of pus - the abscess. Gum disease is also a cause for a tooth becoming abscessed. Gum diseases causes the gums to pull back and away from teeth, leaving pockets behind. When one of the pockets becomes blocked, the bacteria can grow and spread, or get backed up. If they present a bad position or cause you a lot of pain or discomfort, they will need to be removed. When the wisdom teeth first come in, they will sometimes be impacted. Impacted teeth will normally need to be extracted. Sometimes they can be pulled, although in most cases they need to be cut out by a qualified surgeon. If you don t get them fixed, they will get worse, possibly leading to your tooth breaking off at the gums. Pulp irritation is another cause of toothaches, as it occurs after dental treatment. No matter how well your filling or crown was done, the materials that were used to fix the tooth can end up causing pain later on down the road. Root canals are a very common procedure these days, as they help to save the tooth by removing the dead or dying pulp. The pulp exists inside of the tooth, and can spread to abscess if it isn t taken care of. The tissue in the pulp is kept alive by the blood vessels that come from the tip of the root and travel along the root canal into the tooth. Root canals are something we all dread, although when someone else is getting the procedure most of us find it to be somewhat amusing. When someone asks for a root canal on the other hand, most of us, including dentists, find it to be very absurd to say the least. Although many aren t aware of this, root canals have been around for many generations.