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need advice about 3.5 year old

658 views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  motherearthdancer 
#1 ·
Okay here is the basics...
my 3.5 year old needs to go under anastesia to have dental work says his dentist. He's had bad teeth since he was about 9 months old. They always blame my breastfeeding, but because my husband drinks soda...he's was "allowed" to drink it from an early age. I know its bad and he doesn't drink it anymore. He also was "allowed" to eat a lot of junk food which I feel contributed more to his tooth decay (more so than breastfeeding would). I've cut that down dramatically as well. At 9 month old we were told to get the work done soon, but not to hold off too long because they would get worse. about 2 years old we went back and they said his 3 cavities had gone up to about 6 and we should get work done ASAP, but we couldn't aford the anastesia. So we kept putting it off. since then we've had another baby...my husband lost his job...got a new job...we finally got insurance who would cover it, but since my infant son has had some hospital care since then we have a lot of medical bills and we still can't afford the surgury. I made my husband come with me to the dentist this last week so he could see how serious a problem the teeth thing was. It really hit home to him and he is now onboard with my strict no soda...very limited sweets rules...but half of my sons teeth they say have cavities...

I can count at least 3-4 when I look at them. I brush like a crazy woman, and he spits so we even use flouride toothpaste. I'm scared of the risks of the surgury but don't know what else to do. Any thing I should be thinking of? What should I do? We obviously can't do anything until we get money anyways, but I'm afraid of it getting any worse.
 
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#2 ·
Sorry you're dealing with this.

Dd (23 mo old) is my second child and she has severe Early Childhood Caries (ECC), with decay on 9/16 of her teeth. The decay is into the dentin in six of her teeth, but so far the pulp is not yet affected. My first child is 4.5 yo and has no dental problems.

This is what we are doing about it:

Stopping decay:
---------------
* we've had the first of three HealOzone treatments

Remineralizing:
---------------
* frequent cheese
* we are currently using the HealOzone/CurOzone remineralizing liquid between HealOzone treatments (contains a tiny amount of fluoride) applied via Qtip when dd is sleeping
* when we are not using the above liquid, we apply MI Paste (without fluoride) via Qtip while dd is sleeping

Xylitol:
--------
* the whole family is getting 2 Spry Mints (Berryblast) 5x per day for a total of 10 per day (they do not taste like mint)

Diet:
-----
* stopped all dried fruit (dh was feeding it to her regularly before)
* cut back sugar treats (they were occasional before)
* reduced refined carbs (haven't stopped completely because sometimes we just need her to eat)
* increased meat and cheese (we had reduced our intake because of a serious health condition that dh has)
* increasing frequency of bone stock
* dd almost never had juice and still doesn't

Supplements:
------------
* high vitamin cod liver oil - dd takes 2 Natural Factors Super Cod Liver Oil capsules (400 IU of Vitamin D)
* X-Factor Gold High Vitamin Butter Oil supplements (I am taking 3 capsules per day and hoping she is getting it via my breastmilk)

Hygiene
-------
* brushing 2x per day using a Sonicare electric toothbrush with an ultracompact head
* in the morning we use Spry Infant Tooth Gel (sweet but otherwise tasteless)
* in the evening we use PerioPaste (minty, dd doesn't like it)
* when I have to force dd to brush her teeth (songs/games aren't working), I lie her down on the bed and I sit down with my legs in a "V", her head goes between my legs and I pin her arms under my legs - this is a gentle way of getting the job done as quickly as possible
* we watch a fun video after brushing

Breastfeeding
-------------
* we are breastfeeding on demand from sunrise until bedtime
* we recently nightweaned ... although I do not believe that breastfeeding causes ECC, I have reluctantly concluded that once a child has ECC, nightnursing could contribute to making the decay worse
* dd is probably making up for the reduced nightnursing by nursing more in the morning

Our plan is to get dd's teeth treated ASAP if she starts to have any dental pain. We would go the GA route as I have safety concerns about
in-office use of chloral hydrate as recommended by dd's dentist. I don't think that nitrous oxide would be enough for the amount of
treatment that dd would require.

Ciao, Ksenia

Links
-----
HealOzone:
http://www.ozonedentist.ca/treatment.php
MI Paste (contains milk protein):
http://www.gcamerica.com/mipaste.html
internet source of MI Paste:
http://www.dentist.net/prospec-mipaste-recaldent.asp
local source of MI Paste:
http://www.vedderdental.ca/
Spry xylitol mints:
http://www.xlear.com/spry/dds/
Canadian source of Spry mints:
http://www.aviva.ca/shop/products.as...3924&catid=145
Spry Infant Tooth Gel:
http://www.dentist.net/spry-infant-tooth-gel.asp
PerioPaste:
http://www.bioprodental.com/PerioPaste.html
local source of PerioPaste:
http://www.naturesdesigndentalspa.com/
Natural Factors Super Cod Liver Oil:
http://tinyurl.com/2fcblm
X-Factor Gold™ High Vitamin Butter Oil
http://www.drrons.com/x-factor-butter-oil.htm
Canadian Source of X-Factor Gold™ High Vitamin Butter Oil:
http://www.familyherbalclinic.com/gp...st_May2008.pdf
Sonicare:
http://www.sonicare.com/brushes/default.asp
we bought our Sonicare at the local Shoppers Drug Mart, but ordered the ultracompact heads from dentist.net
Crawford the Cat toothbrushing video:
 
#4 ·
Motherarthdancer- I don't have any advice (yet) because I am in a similar situation. I have not yet taken my 3 yr old to the dentist (he turned 3 in Feb) but I can visibly see dark spots on his teeth and on one molar I can see where the spot is sort of eathing through his tooth in one spot. Needless to say I was very upset about this and still am. We try to eat whole, healthy foods. He never has soda or sweetened juices. He eats TONS of cheese and yogurt. He had no sugary treats until he was over 2 yrs old. He did make brushing difficult for quite some time, so all I can figure is that it is from poor brushing early on, and night nursing (he STILL night nurses!) although I hate to blame it on that. I have been adamant about not stopping the night nursing because I work full time and if he didn't night nurse he wouldn't nurse at all...

ANYWAY... I am going to try a route like the other person who posted her and see if we make any progress. LIke you, I want to avoid anaesthesia... I'm actually scared to go to the dentist. My son seems to feel fine and I don't want to hear some terrible news. But I guess I have to just go and get it over with...

GOOD LUCK!!
 
#5 ·
I have btdt. My middle child (a nurser who slept on the breast) had really bad teeth. The dentist said some kids are like that (my other two had fine teeth and did not fall asleep nursing, I bfed till 3 yrs and the youngest has NO decay...so I do think the WAY he nursed had alot to do with it). Vy healthy diet, etc. SOme kids just are predisposed via genetics, etc. Doesn't matter how perfect you are in your dental hygiene.

ANyway we are talking severe decay, we put it off too long; long story short, he had two teeth pulled and silver crowns on two teeth. The brown spotted teeth in the front were left and fell out. We used nitrous. It was very very hard-- dh took him---(and he is now dentist-traumatized) but we had to do it and we got through it. Key is an experienced, GOOD ped dentist. WHo knows how to deal with and handle kids. Good luck, you don't want to let it go to the abscess stage. No, no, no.
 
#6 ·
Just wanted to send a little reassurance that both of my dc have had fillings; and they both did fine. They both had the shots and the gas. Dd said it was fun (she loooooves picking a toy from the dentist's toy bin when it's over!!). Neither one of them is scared when we have another visit.
 
#7 ·
thank you for all the replies. I feel terrible, but now our new problem is we couldn't afford the procedure even if we decided to do it. The dentist offered to set up a payment plan and bill us for the 3000/4000$$ caps/fillings/ etc...but we would still have to pay between 780-1000 for GA day of surgury. Even if we used our stimulas check to pay for it, we wouldn't be able to do it until July. Grrrrr....

I feel terrible being too poor to pay for dental stuff. This is why we waited so long to begin with, we saved and saved and then DS2 was hospitalized for RSV at beginning of this year and we have large bills having to do with that and ER visits. I want DS1's teeth to be a priority, but any way we do it, we are going to owe someone, and I'm just frustrated b/c we were doing okay until the beginning of this year...not great..but better. I felt like we would be mostly out of debt by last year and now I feel like we will be working on new debt all this year.

Sorry to vent, it just seems never ending. Yk?

So what would you MDC peeps do if you couldn't afford to do it now? Would you do GA on a 3.5 year old? the drink they offer sounds weird too...has anyone done that? They said if we did it that way, it would be more tramatic for him and we'd have to do 2 visits. anyone ?
 
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