Teen Tooth Trouble

I think my youngest son would be the first to admit that he isn’t the biggest fan of visits to the dentist. All of my other children, quite enjoy the process but L has always found it quite stressful. He is someone who becomes anxious easily and who likes his own personal space, so dentist visits are pretty much his worst nightmare.

Added to that, he has often been reluctant to see the value of looking after his teeth and the phrase ‘pulling teeth’ could be very apt when describing the endless conversations (read nagging!) we have had about oral hygiene.

So with all of that in mind, he had to be the one child who had tooth problems didn’t he? He is the one who has seen an array of dentists and orthodontists who have all been umming and aahhing about what to do with his teeth. He is the one who has had his teeth and gums poked and prodded, had to have X-rays where he has huge metal clamps in his mouth.

The problem is that one of his incisors is poking out of the gum above his other teeth and has no room to come down. The general consensus by all involved over the last few years has been that either he needed a tooth out to make space for this meddlesome tooth to come down or wear a brace to create space for it.

I wasn’t relishing the idea of a brace. He has a pretty low tolerance level for pain and I know that even though braces are a million times better than they were when I was young, they can stile pretty painful for the first few weeks.

I was bracing myself (pardon the pun!)

What felt like many visits later to different places, they said that a brace wouldn’t work and the choice was to have a tooth out. There were two options, they could remove one of the teeth that is already in place, which would be a simple tooth extraction or alternatively they could take out the offending tooth but that would be a more complicated procedure in hospital.

For me it was a no-brainer, a simple tooth extraction sounded like the right course of action. We could go to our local dentist who is so lovely and so good with all of the children. It would be a quick injection and hopefully fairly painless.

The appointment was last week and I deliberately didn’t talk about what was going to happen so that I wouldn’t stress my son out. He was very anxious going in and told me that I should have taken him to the hospital. I kept very calm and told him repeatedly that this was a much better option for him.

Luckily, the dentist knows that he suffers with anxiety and as he sat in the chair looking very cross and surly, she started chatting to him and complimented him. He quickly relaxed and before we knew it, the injection was done and the tooth was out.

He commented afterwards that he hadn’t liked the injection but I don’t think anyone does, do they?

I was very proud of my young man. It has been a long journey getting to the point where we could finally do something and although it doesn’t seem like a big deal, I know that it is a really big deal for him.

Now we wait and see if the offending tooth will now move down of its own accord. I hope that it does, otherwise we will be having yet more dental visits and possible a hospital procedure to get it moving. Fingers crossed that it happens by itself as I think we have had more than our fair share over the last few years.