"It takes an oral antibiotic 24-48 hours to break through the good bacteria in order to get to the bad to reach the infection. That's why antibiotics like amoxicillin need to be taken for certain lengths of time to be effective. Every time you take amoxicillin for less than 7 days, you disrupt it's ability to work properly."

This is excellent information, and the very first time I've known of it. Looking online it always said only to take an antibiotic if you felt it draining.

There is still drainage/infection going on all this time later and I can't tell if if it's from the the nicely-healed area where the fistula has also healed nicely, or the large tooth below this area that looks pretty good, as far as I can see back there. The dentist noticed last year that it was "mobile"- it's a wisdom tooth that suddenly began growing again, quit, and is now up a good bit higher than the others. There are no other symptoms such as pain or swelling. The drainage will stop for a while then resume, always between evening and early morning hours. Oddly enough, during daytime, when I eat, it seems to stop it.

I went to a dental clinic and the head of the clinic did all the work on me for the past 10 years.