Teeth Drama

Remember when Elizabeth smashed her mouth into the slide, about 2 1/2 years ago?

And how I was a very good Mommy, and took her to the dentist, right away? The dentist, who I should mention was not a pediatric dentist, told me that everything was fine and there would be no long term problems. Little did I know, the dentist was an IDIOT! Actually, I'm learning that it's not just that dentist who's an idiot, but any regular dentist, who is dealing with children.

A couple months ago, I took Elizabeth back to the dentist for a cleaning. She saw a new dentist this time. This visit was the 4th time she'd been to the dentist, and had her teeth looked at since the slide incident. After my insisting, they took some x-rays (only of the back teeth), and discovered that she had "one tiny cavity".

Did I mention that I think adult dentists are idiots when dealing with children?

Thankfully, we were referred to a pediatric dentist.

The first thing our peds dentist asked was about her loose gray tooth. I told him the slide story. He asked if I had told our regular dentist about the loose tooth. Of course I had! He then informed me that the two front teeth don't normally come out till around age 8, and that this was a HUGE red flag that something was wrong.

He also told me, based on the x-rays that the other dentist had seen, that Elizabeth had not 1, but 3 cavities!

After taking x-rays of her front teeth (you know, the gray ones that had been damaged, that the regular dentist didn't think about x-raying) we found out that the nerve in the loose tooth had died and was decaying AND was infected! The decay is about to spread to her permanent tooth.

So tomorrow, Elizabeth goes to the dentist to have three (relatively small) cavities filled and one tooth pulled.

I really like our pediatric dentist, and trust that he and his staff with do a great job. But if you happen to think of Elizabeth (and me) tomorrow morning, around 10, please say a prayer for us. Thanks!