About a week ago, I had some pain in the area of my bottom wisdom tooth. I was already dealing with a head cold (which I thought I had caught from a roommate who was sick a few days prior) and pains in my chest (which started before the cold), so I didn't really pay much attention to the tooth pain when it started. Two days later, I went to the Doctor's for the head cold and chest pains, which he claimed to all be due to stress. I didn't tell him about the tooth pain because I forgot and thought it was unrelated. That night, the tooth pain got much worse. This continued for 2 more days, but then started to die off, along with the head cold.

When I could think straight, I looked up the tooth pain on the internet and found out gum infections can cause cold-like symptoms, so I got a flashlight and started poking around (now that the pain was pretty close to gone). If I pull the swollen gum way out, I can see black around the tooth in the back. I can put a dental pick/scraper (not sure the technical term) in that gap and scrape the tooth where it is black without any pain, but then I touch the gum in the spot next to the black and it's extremely painful. So I know that's got to be the infected spot. the black spot doesn't look big, and it's definitely against the tooth.

The gum pain has nearly gone away, and the head cold is extremely mild now, but still exists.

So, the question is, whether I should go to the Doctor's again, the dentist, or just see what happens the next few days? I don't have dental insurance, so I'd like to avoid that if possible. I also don't have a lot of money and am out of a job, so avoiding a doctor's visit unless necessary is best, but I know that I'll make due if I need to do either. I'm more worried about the infection spreading than anything, but I don't know how you can tell or if it is possible for it to spread even if it is no longer painful and going away?

Also, I'm beginning to think the whole head cold came on from the infection because it didn't feel like a normal cold. I had a headache the first day and haven't been able to think at all for a week!