Extraction

A few days before our trip down south* Guerita had a dental appointment. Half our time on trips back home seem to be filled with check up and catch up appointments with dentists, doctors etc - not exactly that exciting. Guerita has a bad history of chipping her teeth - the first occasion being just before her second birthday when she tripped running along the footpath and took the corners off both front teeth. On that occasion there was no major damage - no nerves exposed and no treatment required.

Last year, however, just before her 4th birthday (what is it about birthdays?) she was running (again) and tripped going up the stairs…which have marble tiles. Ouch! This time only one tooth copped it, but she got it well - chipped a lot off it and exposed a nerve. We raced off to the dentist who told us she’d need it capped - basically like a filling to build up the tooth and cover up the nerve. It was all a bit traumatic, not least because we weren’t really that sure about the quality of the dentist (here in Mexico). We went ahead though, since we didn’t have much choice. I was not happy to be told that the dentist preferred that parents wait outside the treatment room while it was being done - because it upsets the kids more. What? It was not a pleasant experience for Guerita who I could hear crying from my position hovering outside the door. But we got through and she had no problems with tooth.

I did want to get it checked out by her regular (paediatric) dentist when we were back in Perth though, so off we trot to the dental surgery. Guerita sits fairly happily in the chair and shows the dental therapist her teeth, but the minute the whirring equipment (with only a cleaning attachment on it) starts she completely FREAKED OUT. Clamped her mouth shut and wouldn’t let her anywhere near her teeth to clean them or examine them more thoroughly. The dentist has only marginally more success - enough to tell us she has a cavity in one of the molars and for him to make the decision that there was no way she was going to let them fill it in the chair. The only option - have a filling under general anaesthetic!!!!

I’m still a bit shocked that this is what it came to. Personally, I would have tried a bit more coercion or bribery in the dentist chair to get it done there, but I didn’t think it was appropriate to promise an icecream as a reward for having a filling! The dentist was reluctant to add to her trauma by forcing the treatment there and then. He’s very big on making the dentist a positive experience for kids, but really - is it ever fun for anyone? I’m not sure going into hospital is any less traumatic.

Anyway, with a time pressure to get it done, the next day we were in a nearby day surgery with Guerita having a dental treatment under general anaesthetic. On the plus side she all her molars filled as a precaution (very deep grooves caused the cavity, apparently, so I was off the “bad mother hook” for her brushing technique) and they took xrays of them and of the capped tooth.

I guess it was lucky we went that way, since they found a small abscess on the nerve and we had to make a quick decision to extract the tooth there and then.

So now here’s her gappy, chippy smile

(she still looks beautiful to us, of course!!)

Not exactly how we were planning on spending our holiday…

* My posts are all over the place chronologically at the moment - a bit like my brain!