A little overwhelmed...

[melfinn]

I have a major phobia of dentist but have finally found one to work with that. But now my son has major dental problems at four and a half. I'm afraid he has my teeth. We have taken care of his teeth but he still has many cavities, his top four front and 8 back/molar teeth. They want to sedate him pull the front four and put stainless steel crowns on the other eight. I know the cavities are there bt don't know how serious it all is. He has only gotten front X-RAYs as he has a horrible gag reflex.
We have CDPHP that we pay a small amount for so basically medicaid we just pay a small amount. My husband wants to wait and see. I having bad teeth all my life want his teeth as healthy as can be. My son aslo only has one functional kidney which worries us both if he is to be sedated.

We put off the last surgery date and my husband is still not on board. I just don't want his adult teeth to be affected. Our surgery date is end of jan but if we are not doing it they want to know right away as they only have one surgery day every two months and it fills up fast. My son doesn't complain but maybe he doesn't even know what the lack of pain feels like. he only eats soft food and has favorites.

My husband thinks they only want to do that amount of work because of the money. IDK it sounds like a lot of decay is goin gon even though we have kept on top of keeping his teeth clean and making to his appointments.

Anyone have advice? Sorry if I posted n wrong place first time on this board. If he only had one or two caries then I'd take the wait and see approach but it seems to be so much. BTW I am 42 and only have 10 of my adult teeth left but my teeth were not taken care of. I mean there wear times when we didn't have toothbrushes or toothpaste. So I thought taking such good care of our sons teeth would make a difference. Thanks for reading all this if you have made it to the end Mel

 

[gamergirl123]

I have a major phobia of dentist but have finally found one to work with that. But now my son has major dental problems at four and a half. I'm afraid he has my teeth. We have taken care of his teeth but he still has many cavities, his top four front and 8 back/molar teeth. They want to sedate him pull the front four and put stainless steel crowns on the other eight. I know the cavities are there bt don't know how serious it all is. He has only gotten front X-RAYs as he has a horrible gag reflex.
We have CDPHP that we pay a small amount for so basically medicaid we just pay a small amount. My husband wants to wait and see. I having bad teeth all my life want his teeth as healthy as can be. My son aslo only has one functional kidney which worries us both if he is to be sedated.

We put off the last surgery date and my husband is still not on board. I just don't want his adult teeth to be affected. Our surgery date is end of jan but if we are not doing it they want to know right away as they only have one surgery day every two months and it fills up fast. My son doesn't complain but maybe he doesn't even know what the lack of pain feels like. he only eats soft food and has favorites.

My husband thinks they only want to do that amount of work because of the money. IDK it sounds like a lot of decay is goin gon even though we have kept on top of keeping his teeth clean and making to his appointments.

Anyone have advice? Sorry if I posted n wrong place first time on this board. If he only had one or two caries then I'd take the wait and see approach but it seems to be so much. BTW I am 42 and only have 10 of my adult teeth left but my teeth were not taken care of. I mean there wear times when we didn't have toothbrushes or toothpaste. So I thought taking such good care of our sons teeth would make a difference. Thanks for reading all this if you have made it to the end Mel

Sounds like you need a second opinion. That much work MIGHT be a legit thing especially since dental problems can run in the family(this is speaking from experience) but the problem is that sometimes there's some really screwed up dentists That are money hungry and they just make up problems to rip off patients/insurance companies.

 

[comfortdentist]

The preferred treatment is most likely to have the dentist see him under general anesthesia at the hospital. Find out if he has hospital privileges.

 

[Tally]

I am a little late responding so you may have already taken care of this but I eantd to reply since I have been through something similar. One of our children's front four teeth had decay issues. When they came in before he was a year old the pediatrician remarked that there was "something not right" about them so off to the dentist we went. He had a brown line across all four front teeth. The dentist wanted to watch and wait, which we did for two years. Then all of a sudden things took a turn for the worse and we ended up with four crowns on those teeth. Our dentist at the Time didn't do sedation on children under three as he used oral sedation and I think this is why he didn't treat him sooner (unfortunately).

That at dentist used crowns that were white in front but silver in back which was not ok with me. So I researched and found a dentist who did "ez pedo" crowns, which are white. They look now just like his regular teeth, probably better.

The he dentist who ended up treating him did iv sedation with a pediatric anestesiologist. It was scary, but my son woke up completely fine and never even had an issue with brushing after. we have dental insurance and we still paid a ton out of pocket. $1500 Went for the sedation which our medical would not cover. He had staining on two molars so we went ahead and had sealants put on all 8 molars which dental would not cover.

i have dental anxiety and it's even worse in relation to my kids! We don't have fluoride in our water where we are... Plus I think we have some intense bacteria or something. I am now doing a xylitol regimen with myself and the kids in hopes it will help.

the whole thing was embarrassing to me; I couldn't even talk to anyone about it besides my husband! I was a third grade teacher at the time (now at home with my kids) and couldn't believe I had allowed this to happen.

i wouldnget a second opinion just to be safe... But cavities on baby teeth are a different ball game then on adult teeth. They progress faster and even a small cavity in a baby tooth may need a crown bc the primary teeth aren't as strong.
good luck mama I know it's tough!

I have a major phobia of dentist but have finally found one to work with that. But now my son has major dental problems at four and a half. I'm afraid he has my teeth. We have taken care of his teeth but he still has many cavities, his top four front and 8 back/molar teeth. They want to sedate him pull the front four and put stainless steel crowns on the other eight. I know the cavities are there bt don't know how serious it all is. He has only gotten front X-RAYs as he has a horrible gag reflex.
We have CDPHP that we pay a small amount for so basically medicaid we just pay a small amount. My husband wants to wait and see. I having bad teeth all my life want his teeth as healthy as can be. My son aslo only has one functional kidney which worries us both if he is to be sedated.

We put off the last surgery date and my husband is still not on board. I just don't want his adult teeth to be affected. Our surgery date is end of jan but if we are not doing it they want to know right away as they only have one surgery day every two months and it fills up fast. My son doesn't complain but maybe he doesn't even know what the lack of pain feels like. he only eats soft food and has favorites.

My husband thinks they only want to do that amount of work because of the money. IDK it sounds like a lot of decay is goin gon even though we have kept on top of keeping his teeth clean and making to his appointments.

Anyone have advice? Sorry if I posted n wrong place first time on this board. If he only had one or two caries then I'd take the wait and see approach but it seems to be so much. BTW I am 42 and only have 10 of my adult teeth left but my teeth were not taken care of. I mean there wear times when we didn't have toothbrushes or toothpaste. So I thought taking such good care of our sons teeth would make a difference. Thanks for reading all this if you have made it to the end Mel