alot of dental work

[Anonymous]

sylvia had another dentist appt today. she is going to need alot more work than i thought and it will involve several trips. i’m glad i got her in when i did because her teeth are starting to bother her. we don’t want to take repeated trips out of town to get work done on her teeth. i take her to the office out of town (90 min drive) tomorrow. depending on how good she is for them, the will try and fix the two teeth that are hurting—if she is difficult, they will just try and get the nerve work done to stop the pain.

kevin and i think it would be easier on sylvia to have her put under anesthesia in the surgery center and then get all her teeth fixed at once. unfortunately, the local surgey center is booked to the end of the year—–but, luckily, the pocatello surgery center had one opening. so sylvia will be having her teeth fixed on dec. 20—-kevin will be having orthoscopic surgery on his ankle on the 21.

i guess the most likely reason that sylvia’s teeth are so bad is becaue she was failure to thrive for 2 years—and the pediasure in a bottle probably didn’t help her teeth, although it did wonders for her weight.

it’s just a circus at our house!!! i’ve been trying to do most of my christmas shopping on line and on e-bay to eliminate some of the stress and keep me from getting exhausted and in pain from too much shopping.

we are supposed to have snow flurries tomorrow, so i hope it doesn’t turn into full blown snow while i am on the road.

kevieb2006-11-28 0:20:48

[Anonymous]

Oh Christine, I’m so sorry to hear that. You guys always seem to have something thrown on your plate. I have to say that I am absolutely petrified of Hailey getting bad cavities. I worry that the same thing is also in her future since she won’t let us brush her teeth, and she vomits a lot these days which also isn’t good for her teeth. Did Sylvia also have issues with brushing? Any tips, other than the obvious related to bottle feeding, to help us avoid the same fate?

Good luck and keep us posted. Poor little girl.

[Anonymous]

Poor sweetie. I hope the procedures go well and stop her pain.

I’d be a wreck…surgery for your daughter and husband within two days! I hope they are both feeling well in time for Christmas.

[Anonymous]

Good Luck, Christine!!

We started bringing Dylan and Carter very young for two reasons:

1. Preemies have more potential to not have the proper enamal (sp?) on their teeth when they come in.

2. The acid from reflux can erode the teeth very quickly.

We were told to start bringing the boys when they were 6 months old. So far no issues with either of them…

[Anonymous]

Hi Christine

Sorry to hear about yet another issue! Glad you got an appointment and hope all goes well. I have actually heard that tooth decay in babies can also be caused by reflux and the acid constantly coming up — not sure if it is right or not but i thought it made sense. Given that Sylvia’s reflux was pretty severe for a while… do you think that could be the cause of it?

Lori – we are still not able to brush Matthew’s teeth either and are not forcing the issue. But you said Hailey loves the bath water?? Do you use a cloth? Matthew loves bath water, so we just let him have the cloth and he sucks on it… slowly i have been taking the cloth and just wiping his teeth and now, i jsut do it for a few seconds. The dentist said it is the same as brushing really and Matthew loves it

[Anonymous]

Ann Marie – i think we posted at the same time!! Glad to see you around

[Anonymous]

Hi Thais! Great to see you, too!

Dylan had a really hard time with the toothbrush, too, so we got one of those soft finger ones with just the really soft bumps on the end. It was like a game, that he would try to bite my finger as I moved it across his teeth. Can’t say it didn’t hurt more than once, but we made it fun and just brushed his teeth this way for quite a while. It is just recently at almost 4 that he allows me to brush his teeth with the real toothbrush….

[Anonymous]

I use the 1-2-3 away method. Not sure if I posted this already, but let me know if I didn’t and you want to know more. Hailey has been pretty defensive around her mouth, but has more recently let me use the infident brush a little bit. But just water and no toothpaste. I’ll try the cloth in tub technique (since yes, she does love bathwater). She’s been vomitting so much at night lately that I worry about the state of her teeth. Thanks for the tips.

Sorry to hijack Christine.

[Anonymous]

we had snow last night and the driving conditions had a caution for most of the road to pocatello, so we did not go. i hope sylvia’s teeth don’t bother her too much before the 20th. i think i might tentatively plan on going up on the 19th and staying in a motel the night before her work is to be done just so that we don’t run into road problems.

to answer a few things, sylvia did not cut her first tooth until 3 days after her fundo, so her reflux did not play a part in the tooth decay—but i think reflux has potential to cause teeth problems if a child cuts teeth early. tianna could have damaged her teeth from throwing up with her eating disorder, so reflux has got to be the same.

i’m not too worried about the two surgeries since sylvia shouldn’t be in a lot of pain from her dental work and kevin is having orthoscopic surgery, so he will only miss one day of work. about 11 years ago i had tianna, kassie, and kevin all at the hospital having same-day surgery on the same day. the nurses thought we were nuts—but we got it all done at once.

even though sylvia has been put out several times with no problems, i still am just a little worried about having her go under anesthesia again—i think the older she gets the more i worry.

lori, sylvia has not had issues with brushing her teeth, although if i don’t let her do it herself first, it can turn into a battle. i always wonder how good of a job we really get done, though, when we brush her teeth since it seems to be a bit of a challenge. something i have just recently learned is that some people have a different kind of bacteria in their mouth that makes them more susceptible to cavities. the ped dentist office told me that there are some drops that we can put in her mouth 3 times a day to help her eliminate the bad bacteria in her mouth. the dentist also told me that sometimes an imbalance in their gut can cause bacteria problems—–so using pro-biotics can also benefit their teeth by helping the bacteria balance to be right. these are a couple of things you might be able to do with hailey. he also recommended a vitamin with minerals.

the general consensus about sylvia’s teeth seems to be that it was her failure to thrive for the first 2 years that is probably the reason why she has so many cavities in her teeth. being on pediasure in a bottle probably didn’t help alot, either. sometimes you just have to choose the lesser of 2 evils, i guess.

i think that taking very young children in for “happy visits”, like ann marie does is probably a really good idea, also.

i really hate the idea of sylvia having those stainless steel crowns on her 4 bottom front teeth.

another lesson i have learned is to not judge other people. i had a tendency to think that when young children had to have so many stainless steel crowns on their teeth that it was because the parents either didn’t take care of their teeth very well or because they left them on the bottle too long. these can both be factors—but there other reasons for dental problems in young children that are somewhat beyond a parents control.

[Anonymous]

I know what you mean about putting them under… we are going for CT scan on friday and if they do not get a good shot… then he will have to be sedated again and like you, as he gets older, it gets more difficult. Hopefully she will do fine again!

My teeth SUCK – there is nothing i can do about it. I don’t even know how many root canals (and a couple of missing teeth)… i never had candy or ate anything bad when i was younger, brushed my teeth, dropped teh bottle really early etc… the dentists was always amazed and for a couple of years i was at the dentist every week…. i just think that my teeth are weak andd there is nothing i can do about it!

[Anonymous]

Lori

(sorry to hijack again) we use 1,2,3 away for everything in Matthew’s therapies… not sure it helps though yet. Don’t think he gets it

[Anonymous]

Christine, thanks for the tips. My mother always had weak teeth as a child and had to have tons of dental work done. Back in those days, dental work was much more painful, and so she went through a lot with her teeth. Even now, she has always had issues with her teeth, and has had to have lots of dental surgeries as she gets older to keep them. I think that some people are just born with weak teeth. I hope it’s easy going on Sylvia, and not too bad.

This experience with Hailey has shown me not to judge anyone. You really never know what others go through. People always make comments when they hear that I feed my 18 month old at night. Instead of trying to explain it, I just remind myself that I’ve done the best that I can, and that if people want to judge our parenting, I don’t really care.

Thais, I posted a reply under a new thread “toothbrushing tips” so as not to hijack Christine’s post.

s&h’s mum2006-11-28 14:6:48

[Anonymous]

Christine,

Has Sylvia been tested for celiac? I cannot remember if she was one of your children who was positive for it. I assume from all the research you’ve done that you know that celiac is one of the most common contributors to teeth enamel problems? Funny that I was only tested for wheat allergies years ago and went off only wheat. If they had known about the enamel thing then maybe I would have been tested for celiac earlier. I was just tested a few weeks ago because of a bunch of new health problems going on the past couple of years (including severe gerd and gallbladder problems — interestingly all since I went back to eating wheat) and turns out I have celiac. Anyway, I had to have a TON of dental work done starting at around 2 years old and just in the past year have had to have all of my teeth porcelain crowned (or I would have lost them all). So, with celiac running in your family this may be an explanation for Sylvia’s teeth problems.

Sorry to hear about so many things going on with members of your family!! I hope that things settle down a bit before Christmas and you are able to have some wonderful relaxing holiday cheer!

[Anonymous]

Two of my sister’s baby teeth came in with “cavities” they were actually holes (or something like that). I hope that things go ok with both surgeries!!!!-oh if you don’t want the snow please send some down here, we never get to see any!!!

[Anonymous]

christine—i’m sorry you have celiac, too! however, at least you found an answer that will hopefully help your health problems—-and you already know how to do the no wheat thing, now you just have to add barley, rye and oats to the list. if you like oats, there are several sources for guaranteed gluten free oats. we have bought these—kind of pricey—but it is so nice to be able to use oats again.

i saw a picture one day of the dental enamel defects that celiac can cause—and it looked exactly like the front of sylvia’s teeth—so i keep worrying that she might have celiac, but so far she has been tested twice and both times it came back negative. hopefully we will have the results of our gene testing pretty soon and i will know who is at risk for celiac and will need continued testing.

so far, ian is the only (non-celiac) child that we know has the gene. he has had specialized testing done and it appears he does not have celiac, but they still consider the tests inconclusive on him. he has always been extremely small for his age and when he was little he was really anemic for no apparent reason. his diapers never seemed “right” as a baby, he talked really late and had some odd behaviors—we thought he might be autistic. since he is IgA deficient, he will always be more difficult to test—–and there is no way in **** he would ever agree to try gluten free without a positive diagnosis.

are you going to have palmer tested? my dad is allergic to wheat and i’ve told him he really ought to be tested for celiac, but so far he has not done it.

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