If you had a tooth abcess, the nerve is dead and the tooth is just a pool of bacteria waiting to re-infect you.
Now, I know a lot of people here claim root canals are bad because they leave a minor amount of bacteria in the tooth. However, a root canal's worth of bacteria is loads smaller than a dead tooth without a root canal.
As for the previous poster, a tooth with spontaneous pain is sign of irreversible damage to the tooth's nerve. root canal or extraction are the only options.
Anything that removes the pain, does only that. It will not remove the source of the pain, which is the bacterial infection in the tooth. Don't let masking of the symptoms prevent you from seeking definative care. I see too many patients come in with problems that are 10x worse because they waited to get treated.