Two things about Emer

[ailbhe]

Today she said that a piece of her tooth came out at Meeting and she took it out of her mouth with her hand and it's gone. I can't tell whether or not that's true. It's five days until her dentist appointment. If I could rot my own teeth instead o fhers, I would. If I could repair her teeth byt strength of will, I would. If heartbreak and regret could undo the damage, it woudl be undone.

But it can't, and it's not, and I am crying. I want it to be ok. I don't want her sedated. I don't want her to lose a tooth before she's even three. I don't want her to have fillings and gaps and most of all I don't want her to have been so very very ill when she was eight months old and I don't want her to have had the antibiotics for that illness. The illness or the fever or the antibiotics are probably what damaged the unerupted tooth bud, then forming in her baby gum, and the antibiotics we forced into her, holding her mouth shut while she gagged them up and reswallowed them, going purple all the while, that's what gave her the oral aversion. And the oral aversion is what made toothbrushing so traumatic, so where Linnea at this age brushed her own teeth almost perfectly and opened gleefully for a grown-up finish, Emer fights and screams and cries and locks her jaw.

The only good thing is that since the more intense toothbrushing regime, her teeth no longer hurt her - the fighting is fury, not pain, now, and that's very clear. I'm trying to work out how to change the way she likes to breastfeed, too, because the teeth most exposed to milk are in much better condition than the ones which hardly ever get touched. But her positioning preferences are very strong.

---

This evening, Emer tied the arms of her nightie around her neck, and hung it red behind her back, because "My Am A Hupahewo."

then she took it off and gave me a careful step-by-step lesson in how to tie a knot; "And den dis bit like dat, and den dis bit fwoo heah, and den dis bit UP, and den..."

---

There is a whole lot of love in the world.

Comments

[supermouse]

If it's any consolation, my baby teeth were in a terrible state and I hated anyone anywhere near my mouth, or even head, but my adult teeth came through strong and fine.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

Entirely un-related, but both make me feel like a bad mother. Holly has a dead front tooth from an accident when she was smacked in the face at toddler group with a woodne box by another child. On purpose too, in temper. It is now grey & shows up in all of her photos :/ Our dentist says it's just luck really if the dead nerve for the milk tooth means a dead one for the adult tooth too. I have a couple more years of worry until we know.
She also had a filling at our last check-up, from a pre-cavity. Never heard of them before, but it would apparently have developed into a cavity if left. One of those things I was told, all the other teeth are fine. Holly eats a healthy varied diet, there's no obvious explanation :/
Kate eats an extremely limited diet & I struggle to get her 5 a day in her & her teeth are all perfect.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

My sister had a grey one from tripping over a milk bottle and falling onto a concrete step. The adult tooth was fine.

[chiasmata]

I had a dead milk tooth from an unfortunate incident involving my younger brother's fist -- it never did go grey, which the dentist always told me was Very Lucky, and the adult tooth is fine.

[the-changeling.livejournal.com]

*hug*

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

I am in the middle of a tooth nightmare too and I am far far more to blame for it than you are. We did two unpardonable things with Charlie (now 4): waited to take him to his first dental appointment until only a month or so ago, and gave him juice (diluted, but apparently it's still poison) far too frequently when he was small. Including at night. Now he has EIGHT cavities, some of them quite deep. Do I feel like shit? Yes. Now we are going to be taking him to a private pediatrician dentist and I'm not sure yet what she will recommend, but there is a hard road ahead, and it is Charlie who will be suffering... So yeah, I know all about parental guilt.

The pluses in your case are that you have caught Emer's problem relatively early, and are doing everything in your power to help her. And not to minimize the significance of what's going on, but still, the teeth affected ARE her baby teeth. She could still have a strong, perfect set of adult teeth.

Finally, while it's certainly possible that the oral antibiotics played a role in her oral aversion, Charlie has an ENORMOUS oral aversion. Fights and screams every single time we brush his teeth, and always has done. And we have virtually never given him any medication by mouth. He's never had an antibiotic, and I've always used paracetamol suppositories because he rejected syrups so vehemently. So there is a possibility that Linnea and Emer are just different: Linnea doesn't mind toothbrushing and Emer does.

Good luck and I feel for you.

[ailbhe]

Thank you, you are very kind. Sadly the oral aversion is quite clear - before the drugz she took spoons of food happily, afterwards she never took another spoonful unless she did it herself, until she was over 18 months old. Toothbrushing was just an extension of that, really. Non-minty toothpaste makes it less dreadful for her but it's still usually a fight.

They are, of course, very very different children.

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

I have been following Emer's tooth saga closely because of Charlie, and I tried non-minty toothpaste with him when I saw it worked better for Emer. Unfortunately he hates the non-minty types even more, sigh.

About the oral aversion - I see. Poor you and her. On the other hand, pre-antibiotics, babies died of fever... you were doing what you had to do to help her.

I reiterate that you deserve only applause.

[artela.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8112603.stm

Hopefully it will help both of you get a little peace of mind that dentists are not uniformly of the opinion that it is worth doing anything with baby teeth unless it's to avoid pain and discomfort.

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

Very interesting - thanks!

[artela.livejournal.com]

It interests me as when I was very young I was under the care of the forces dentist, whose view was "do nothing unless you have to". The only interventionalist treatment I had while I still had baby teeth was the removal of my canines when the adult teeth started to come through (to ensure room for my wisdoms when I got older)... it worked, they just fit. My sister was not as lucky and as a result ended up with her canines being "crowded" and not enough room for her wisdoms necessitating a hospital trip for their removal, and this was despite the care she received being more intervnetionalist about caring for the baby teeth than mine had been.

[ailbhe]

My own teeth have always been perfect, and my baby sister who had a zillion fillings and special goo painted on and things is the one who has no wisdom teeth at all and will never need anything done, bah.

Apparently we inherit good teeth and no wisdom teeth from my mother and bad teeth and wisdom teeth from my father, so over the five of us it's a bit random. I suppose I'm lucky they didn't cause me an problems until I was pushing 30, really.

I always get a second opinion before I accept treatment, for myself or, now that that may be necessary, for the children. Opinions in dentistry are so incredibly varied I can't bring myself to trust just one.

[kelvix.livejournal.com]

guilt is something I am so familiar with - probably upbringing/religion related. It is so heavy, bitter, indigestible, brainslamming, and tear inducing.

Sometimes I feel better if I identify the emotion for the unhelpful primitive reaction that it is - trying to keep it in check. Before it chastizes me again, and gives me restless days and nights.

Guilt has a way of making me responsible for all that has gone wrong: whether or not it was something I could have done differently, and even when it was not actually anything I had chosen to do.

Because there really is no remaking the past - the spilt milk will not run back. And it is possible that the course of action with the oral antibiotics has made the current situation. But possibly it is something slightly different: genetic factors etc. And even possible that this is a childhood condition - when the adult teeth come in, there may be no difficulties at all.

But I sympathise.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this will help at all, but my sister had rotten baby teeth when they erupted first, and despite that her adult teeth were quite normal.

I know that doesn't help the current situation, but some hope for the future perhaps...