Monday, November 15, 2010

The trip to the dentist

I had been slacking while we lived in Kansas and did not take the kids to the dentist. We got a glowing recommendation for a pediatric dentist here that also is noted for working well with special needs children so I scheduled an appointment. They boys had a great visit, Daniel is the only one who cried and that was expected.

All three boy have a tooth that is not forming enamel as it should which is not entirely unexpected since I had that same issues as a kid. We are just going to keep a careful watch on the teeth and see if they start forming cavities or not. Harry apparently fell on his face and cracked the root of one of his front teeth so we are also going to watch that to make sure that there are no signs of infection.

Evan of course is the complicated kid. He has a cavity in one of him permanent molars. He is missing an adult tooth plus three of his wisdom teeth and one of his adult molars is not forming well. Apparently kids with birth defects often are missing teeth or have them malformed so this was not unexpected to the dentist. The wisdom teeth not being there could also be attributed to genetics since my father did not have any at all. The one wisdom tooth is right next to the malformed molar so eventually they can move it forward and put it where the malformed molar is. With the missing adult tooth the hope is that the baby tooth does not come out and grows with the mouth. If that does not happen then a cap can be put on the baby tooth to make it match the other teeth.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

No wisdom teeth could be considered a good thing, no pain later on. Maybe ;)
Happy to hear it went [relatively] smooth. I'm afraid of my daughter's first visit to the dentist, sure it'll be hellish.

Any idea the proper age for a first dentist visit?

Awesome Mom said...

Daniel is only 18 months and he did just fine. All they did was look at his teeth, brush them and put a fluoride paste on them. He sat in my lap facing me and to do the work the dentist had him lean back into her lap while I held on to his hands. I say the earlier the better so they get used to the idea and see that it is not a big deal. Earlier will also help prevent problems later on because you will catch them quickly.

Arkansas Bartholomews said...

There is a pediatric dentist web page that you can use to search in your area. My oldest had a spot on his tooth so I took him in around 2yrs old. It's a little spooky but they are really pretty calm about a lot of odd things when mom is nearby.

Anonymous said...

Personally had the miserable experience of having 4 perfectly healthy teeth pulled (overcrowding) and all 4 wisdom teeth pulled (lack of room and malformed).
Glad that Evan is spared that.
Dentistry has come a long way---amazing some of the things they're able to do now!
diana

spice2116 said...

i think sam would have a hard time warming up. he is my most attached kid and olivia gets nervous about the dentist too. it might have to due with my fear of dentists lol but other two do great.

so glad you got them in. it is good to know ahead of time before surprises come up