How can you tell if things are getting worse/better?

[JMJ]

14.5 month old DD has 2 cavities, and her pediatric dentist thinks they're just getting worse, but I think they look about the same. 1 is very small. The other, a chunk of her tooth has chipped off. We're treating them aggressively with brushing and WAP principles. How can I tell if they're getting worse or better. The dentist thinks it's continuing to chip off, but to me, it looks about the same as it did a few months ago. Is there any way to be objective? Somebody (who may or may not know) told me that the color changes if it's growing or if it's stopped growing. Does anybody know anything more about that? Her dentist wants to just put her under GA now and fix them. I think the experience would be pure hell and want to avoid it if at all possible, but I don't want them to have to do something worse later. How do I know if it's gotten bad enough that we need to just go in and take care of it?

[Denali]

Originally Posted by JMJ

Somebody (who may or may not know) told me that the color changes if it's growing or if it's stopped growing. Does anybody know anything more about that?

As far as I know, it's considered "not active" or stopped when it's turned black. Brown still means it's growing.

If I were you, I'd either wait and try to fight the decay or at least get a second opinion from another dentist. This one - to me - seems to be much too fast with the GA recommendation, espcially since there are only two small problem areas

Are you also using xylitol products? In my opinion, those are a real help to fight decay.

[midnightwriter]

Originally Posted by Denali

As far as I know, it's considered "not active" or stopped when it's turned black. Brown still means it's growing.

If I were you, I'd either wait and try to fight the decay or at least get a second opinion from another dentist. This one - to me - seems to be much too fast with the GA recommendation, espcially since there are only two small problem areas

Are you also using xylitol products? In my opinion, those are a real help to fight decay.

Interesting. DD's cavities, the one that i can see, look gray / black to me, not brown. The dentist is in the alarm mode, saying we need to fix them urgently.