26/05/2026
A woman kept developing a strange pimple on her chin.
It would swell, drain fluid, scab over… then come right back.
Dermatology creams didn’t fix it. Antibiotics didn’t fix it. The lesion kept returning for six months.
The real problem wasn’t on her skin at all.
It was hiding inside her tooth.
This condition is called an Odontogenic Cutaneous Fistula. A chronic infection at the root of a tooth slowly tunnels through bone and soft tissue until it reaches the surface of the skin.
Instead of causing obvious tooth pain, the infection may appear as a persistent “pimple,” nodule, or draining lesion on the chin, jaw, or cheek.
In this case, dental imaging showed bone loss around the root of a mandibular incisor — evidence of a hidden periapical infection.
The body had essentially created a drainage pathway from the infected tooth to the outside world.
Once the true source was treated with a Root Canal Therapy, the fistula closed and the skin lesion completely healed.
Sometimes the skin isn’t the problem.
It’s just the exit point of an infection that started deep inside a tooth.
(C) Ever Arias MD
