Entries tagged with dentist

Today I went to my crazy crazy dentist to have some small fillings. Right along my gum line on several teeth I have some areas of decalcification that aren't exactly cavities, but they never will be if they go ahead and put filling material in to protect them, so that's what we're doing. Fortunately they require only minimal drilling and don't take long, so that's good and it's not a bad dentist visit. Today was a VERY good dentist visit though, because although he was as wacky as ever, FOR FREE my dentist asked me if I wanted him to smooth out a small chip in one of my front teeth and then smooth the other front tooth down to match and also so they will be more in line with the rest of the teeth. My front teeth were by no means rabbity, but they are larger than the other teeth so I was all for it. Anyway, he had me hold a mirror up while he worked and tell him just where to stop when my teeth were like I wanted them, and then he filled the tiny remaining area of the chip exactly to match my front teeth. And he had the dental assistant buff and polish all the teeth up front. He said he rarely had patients with teeth as straight as mine (which is true, they are naturally very straight) and he just wanted to make my smile really beautiful for my Xmas pictures. I thought that was fabulously nice of him. That sort of cosmetic work is usually pretty expensive, I think. I find myself wanting to smile at everyone now. :-)

Well, Jesse and Dingo went to the dentist today and need a hillion jillion dollars worth of dental work. Ok, not that much, but still quite a bit. Eeek!

Jesse has a genetic condition in his teeth that make the enamel look rough and etched and they need to be sealed for now because food sticks in them worse than in regular teeth. He'll need veneers or some such after he's 12, which I had always figured. You can see the rough enamel if you look closely. When he was 4, a different dentist capped four of his baby molars for the same condition because the enamel on them was so poorly formed. Poor kiddo. Both dentists told me that there was nothing we could do about it and it doesn't have to do with brushing or anything, just the genetic luck of the draw. He also said that Jesse's baby teeth are coming out in in an atypical pattern and it's causing the spacing to be weird when the permanent teeth come in. They might straighten up though before it's time to talk about braces. Or not. Sigh. He said we'd also worry about that after he's 12. Personally, this is only confirming my theory that Jesse was sent to us by aliens.

Dingo's teeth are apparently genetically hunky dory, but he's the world's worst tooth brusher, so he has cavities and one root canal coming up. The dentist said that of course the root canal is in a baby tooth, but it's still important to preserve it rather than pull it so he doesn't end up with the same tooth spacing issues Jesse has. I hope this dentist has taken Dingo's sunny, cooperative temperament into account on this root canal plan. I'd recommend a *lot* of nitrous. Oh, and some nitrous for Dingo too.

Mom was the one that took them in today and she said she was really impressed with this dentist's office and they were excellent with the boys, so I'm glad about that. I knew they both needed dental work so that's not a surprise or anything, I'm just glad it wasn't worse. (And this sounds bad, but that no one is blaming me for Jesse's weird enamel thing. It wasn't even something I did wrong while I was pregnant with him, just the combo of R's and my genetics.) The dentist did say he would never have guessed the boys are brothers. They have totally different bone structures, he said and their teeth are just completely different. They're already opposite in every other way though, so why not teeth?

Dentist

Kid day at the dentist.