Matthew's mouth

Poor Matthew!  After recently undergoing not one, but TWO baby root canals (a.k.a. pulpectomy), on Monday, he had to have one of his molars pulled!

And it gets worse.


Next Monday he returns to the dentist to have yet ANOTHER pulpectomy!

I know you're wondering how on earth this child's mouth is in such bad shape, and at the risk of having CPS (Child Protective Services) called on me, I'll tell you.

It all started back in June.  We took the kids in for their usual six-month dental cleaning and check-up, and 3 of them (who shall remain nameless, with the exception of Matthew!) ended up with cavities.  We usually have at least one of the ten in our family needing some work, but three was a little high!  Unfortunately, all three needed several appointments to solve their individual issues, and somehow in my scheduling, I neglected to get Matthew set up for an appointment.  Even worse, Matthew needed the most work!

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago.....

Matthew started complaining about a toothache one night, and was in so much pain that he couldn't eat dinner.  I got him in to see the dentist the very next morning, and after viewing the x-rays, we knew it was bad!  Matthew had a gigantic and visible hole in his tooth that I could see just by looking in his mouth!  It was so bad, in fact, that it had abscessed and was infected.  The dentist decided he needed to be on antibiotics for a week to get the swelling down before work could even begin on the tooth.  In addition, the dentist was unsure as to whether or not he would be able to save the tooth!

We got Matthew started on meds and took him back a couple of weeks later to do a pulpectomy.  At that point, two of his teeth were bad enough to need the root canals, although the dentist was able to save the tooth that had abscessed.  Matthew was a trooper, and did incredibly well during the whole procedure!  An appointment was made to bring him back in this week, and we headed home.

Fast-forward again to this Monday :D

My husband took Matthew in at 7:15 to have his 6-month cleaning and then to have 2 additional fillings done.  We thought the worst was over, and this would be a much easier appointment, but we were wrong!

It turned out that the two teeth that had only needed fillings just a few short weeks ago when we did the initial x-rays, were now so bad that one needed to be pulled (it too, had abscessed) and the other needed a pulpectomy!

My reaction when my husband called to give me the news was shock, horror and disbelief!!!  How had I dropped the ball so badly that my child now had to suffer to this extent?!?!  And how on earth had two cavities completely blown up in such a short time?!

Still stunned, I hung up the phone and cried.  I knew it was my fault.  My child had fallen through the cracks, and they were MY cracks!!!

So now, poor Matthew needs a spacer to maintain the space where his molar should be for another 7 years.  We've decided we might as well just hand over our ENTIRE bank account to the dentist cuz this is gonna cost us big time!  In the end, Matthew will have one pulled tooth and 3 root canals.....all because I forgot to schedule an appointment!

As much as I'd prefer to sweep this under the carpet and pretend that it never happened, I wanted to share it with all you moms of little ones out there in hopes that you will heed this warning......

*Never assume it's ok to let those small cavities go because they are in baby teeth.  It's precisely the fact that they WERE in baby teeth that became the issue!


Apparently, baby teeth are much softer than adult teeth and a cavity that can literally take years to develop in an adult tooth can explode in just weeks (even DAYS) in a baby tooth!  Of course, I knew this to a certain extent, but I never realized just how quickly it could happen!  And while we never decided to just leave the cavities alone (in our case I simply forgot to schedule an appt), I know that there are some out there that decide to wait because they're just baby teeth.

So please, please have your child's teeth checked EVERY SIX MONTHS and don't let those little cavities go to save a couple of dollars......it could end up costing you big time!