The concept of focal infections is a small, insidious inflammation that the patient cannot specify and is often undetectable by standard examinations. Since the disease process often progresses with vague and non-diagnostic complaints such as fatigue, anemia, and weight loss, the place the patient will usually apply to is usually a general practitioner or an internal medicine specialist.
Focal infection sources usually originate from untreated teeth. The patient may not be aware of such an event. Sometimes, when a tooth abscesses, they think they have eliminated the abscess by using antibiotics, but they have only concealed the infection. Such untreated teeth are always like a time bomb for the patient.
The doctor's analytical skills and professional knowledge are important in the correct diagnosis of the disease, which progresses insidiously as small, insidious inflammation that the patient cannot specify. They can cause inflammation in any organ when the body's resistance is broken as a result of effects such as cold, heat, etc. The first thing to do for the treatment of such a disease is to find and eliminate the source of infection.
The patient presents with weakness, loss of energy, unexplained fatigue, and chills. There may be headaches, joint and muscle pain. In the first days, it is thought to be a cold. Sometimes these symptoms continue for weeks.
Abscesses are a common example of such insidious diseases in medical literature.
An abscess in any part of the body can cause atypical symptoms in another unrelated area. For example, streptococci settle in the throat, nose, sinuses or tooth roots of people in the form of focal infection. It causes diseases such as rheumatism, kidney inflammation, endocarditis (known as heart rheumatism among the public), etc. The abscess is missed and treatment is started without adequate physical examination and questioning. As a result, the patient will take unnecessary excess medication and his/her body will develop resistance to bacteria. Since the patient's complaints will be blurred, the real diagnosis may be delayed for a long time.
In cases of acute bacterial rhinitis, which manifests itself with upper jaw toothache, headache, fever, hypersensitivity, edema and purulent nasal discharge, the differential diagnosis should be made with tooth infection.
In focal infections, chronic infection-causing, low-virulence bacterial species are more common. In many sepsis cases, teeth are the primary focus.
2500 years ago, an Assyrian king was cured of rheumatism by having his rotten teeth extracted. In 1818, Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia explained events that revealed the relationship between tooth infection and certain diseases. In 1910, British doctor Hunter claimed in a lecture he gave in Montreal and published in the Lancet newspaper (1911) that conservative dentistry was the primary cause of rheumatic events. He proved this by eliminating oral sepsis and ensuring an improvement in the systemic condition. Again, in 1910, Billings explained the focal infection theory, stating that bacteria and toxins spread from a chronic infection focus to other locations and cause systemic findings.
