I'm not giving medical advice and I'm too poor to sue anyway , but if I were in that situation I would hound my GP for an antibiotic while I was taking green tea extract - see below. Don't underestimate these infections. About two years back, one nearly swallowed our own Ron Hutton when an abscessed tooth took him by surprise.



1. J Neurosci Res. 2004 Dec 1;78(5):723-31.

(-)-Epigallocatechin gallate inhibits lipopolysaccharide-induced microglial
activation and protects against inflammation-mediated dopaminergic neuronal
injury.

Li R, Huang YG, Fang D, Le WD.

Health Science Center, Shanghai Institute for Biological Science, Chinese Academy
of Science, Shanghai Second Medical University, Shanghai, Peoples Republic of
China.

Microglial activation is believed to play a pivotal role in the selective
neuronal injury associated with several neurodegenerative disorders, including
Parkinson's disease (PD) and Alzheimer's disease. We provide evidence that
(-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a major monomer of green tea polyphenols,
potently inhibits lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-activated microglial secretion of
nitric oxide (NO) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) through the
down-regulation of inducible NO synthase and TNF-alpha expression. In addition,
EGCG exerted significant protection against microglial activation-induced
neuronal injury both in the human dopaminergic cell line SH-SY5Y and in primary
rat mesencephalic cultures. Our study demonstrates that EGCG is a potent
inhibitor of microglial activation and thus is a useful candidate for a
therapeutic approach to alleviating microglia-mediated dopaminergic neuronal
injury in PD.


PMID: 15478178 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]