oral surgery for 2.5 year old

[frisco]

hello fellow moms. i'm hoping to gather your thoughts and opinions about this situation with my 2 and a half year old son. i took him to the dentist knowing that he has some pretty bad decay in his back molars. he would not let the dentist get a very good look into him mouth but from what she could see she felt that taking him to the hospital operating room and putting him "under" would be the best way to give him the care he needs. she is supposing that the back 4 molars will need to be drilled and have crowns. or at the worst case, pulled out. they also will do x-rays a cleaning and exam while he is there. when we get to the hospital they will sedate him with vercet (sp?) to calm and relax him and when they get him in the or they will intubate him; general anesthesia. this concerns me greatly. i'm just wondering if i should go through with this now or wait until he is a bit older and care for his teeth the best i can. or does the risk of infection outweigh the risk on general anesthesia?

[Denali]

Hi,

my son just had the same kind of surgery this morning.

He just turned 3 this month, and he's had the decay problem pretty much since his teeth came out, since he was 9-11 months old (first took him to the ped. dentist at 11 months).

I researched and researched, and tried to halt the decay by using different methods (you might want to look into the "curing cavities with nutrition" thread, and also research Xylitol products), and was able to "drag it out" until he turned 3, but today, when the dentist extracted his top 4 teeth, he said that there was a "ball of infection" at the root of one of them. It never looked like he was in pain, so I had assumed that there weren't any infections (yet).

It's difficult to decide when's the right time to go through with something this invasive. You have to make that decision, together with your kid's dentist (if you trust her....if not, go get a second opinion )

But yes, eventually I think you'll have to have it done.

If you look through my postings, you'll find a description of today's surgery, also another description of a very similar surgery by a fellow Mom in another thread, and a few months back there was a thread about "general anesthesia versus conscious (in office) sedation" which might be interesting to you as well.

It sounds like your kid's dentist isn't giving you a choice between sedation or GA anyway, but just in case:
At first I was undecided or even leaning towards sedation, but after doing all the research, I would ALWAYS opt for GA for extensive oral treatments. And I've spoken to several doctors who said the same thing.

Did your dentist say how much time it would take her to work on his teeth? For my son, it was estimated at 1 hour.

Has your son ever complained about the teeth or about pain? Infections?
If there's nothing really bad/acute going on right now, I personally would take some time to research the options, maybe get a second opinion, and in the meantime try to fight the decay with various methods while you are trying to make your decision.

Good luck! Let me know if there's anything I can do.

Charlie