It's 7 p.m., I'm at the computer, my hubby is in the other room with the kids, strumming his guitar and watching Ninja Warrior.
Today was a trip to the dentist with my son. Wow, is that a statement with some history. Okay, for the facts...he was an early teether...sprouted his first 2 baby teeth at 5 months and every month after that 1 or 2 more popping through. He had a great set of teeth! Then around the age of 3 all of his molars seemed to start decaying. It was odd. My daughter, who is 16 months younger than him had no signs of decay and yet his were declining fast. The dentist looked at me with the kind of look that is supposed to make me feel guilty and asked me if we were giving him Coca Cola in his sippy cups (common in this area of the country) of if we let him eat a lot of candy...or did we not ever brush his teeth? Sigh, I left there feeling like a heel...what was it that I was doing wrong? We helped him brush his teeth daily, rarely let him have a sip of Sprite, and the only candy he got was at day care. By the time he was 4 he had 9 cavities!!!
Thus began the looooooooong path leading up to today. Along that path an allergy doctor clued us in to the cause of the cavities...he noticed "cobbling" in his throat...a sign of heartburn. When he asked my son about it and described the symptoms my son readily admitted that yes he had heartburn, and often. The allergist said that kids typically will think it's just "normal" and not mention it. Funny that I have had to clue many a dentist in to this small tidbit of info.
Over the past 4 years I have tried (mostly in vain) to get those cavities filled. I have had 3 different jobs and probably 5 or 6 dental plans that all required a waiting period, a new patient consult, new x-rays, and the painfully embarrassing moment of when each new dentist saw the massive amounts of decay and went into their spiel about how could we let our son's teeth get so bad, etc. only to look at me with distrust as I explained that the heartburn went on for so long without being detected and was the real cause of all the decay.
Okay, that first try to get the cavities filled was 4 yrs. ago. There was one molar that had a very large cavity. It was drilled and filled first. then on the 2nd visit the dentist noticed my son had a cold and decided not to treat him that day. That was in Dec. In January my insurance changed and the dentist was not on the new plan. Then began the 30 day waiting period, choosing a new dentist, first patient consult, etc. etc. I was an hourly employee at the time and had to be careful about how much time I took off work. My hubby is a self-employed insurance agent, and he had to monitor how much time he was out of the office as well as time out meant no sales. By the time I got my son to the new dentist about 8 months had passed. They took x-rays and decided the molar that was filled first still had ongoing decay and needed to be redrilled and refilled. Can you believe this same scenario repeated for the next 3 years...new jobs, new dental plans, new dentists, new patient consults, new x-rays...and that same darn molar continued to decay and got redrilled and refilled 3 times!!! Sigh, so what about the other 8 cavities I kept trying to convince each dentist to work on? FINALLY, this summer as of today 8 of them have been filled. One more to go!! Just in time for them to start falling out and be replaced with adult teeth.
Hoping that this is the end of the cavity era.
As for my daughter, at age (almost) 7 she is still cavity free!
Here's to the molars!
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As an adult, I have been diagnosed with GERD. As a child, I had 10 cavities by the time I was 10. My family only had pop and candy when it was a SPECIAL occasion, which was NOT often enough for me to have cavities due to sugar. But, I think you just opened up a whole new idea to me.
As an adult, my teeth have been great. But it was painful there for awhile as a kid. And my parents got paid dirt. Have NO idea how they afforded it, but then the processes weren't as strenuous back then with regard to beuracracy and paperwork!
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