I haven’t had a chance to post about the kids dentist visit yet amongst getting the Christmas pictures up and the whole worrying and waiting posts yesterday. I thought I’d do that today. Color this my public service announcement post.
Pato and I have 2 very different views on juice.
I think that juice in moderation is ok. But that’s one or two glasses a day. Moderation.
Pato thinks that if you get 100% juice that it doesn’t matter how much you drink because it doesn’t have sugar in it.
Natural sugar. Juice has natural sugar.
I have tried to give our kids milk and water their whole lives. Jordan is the only one of my children who will drink water on purpose. He doesn’t drink anything else. Ever. If he’s thirsty he grabs a glass of water. It’s actually kind of impressive for a kid who is almost 12.
The other 3 it is like pulling teeth to get them to drink anything else.
I knew better. I truly did. But I didn’t fight as much as I should have.
Until this last dental visit.
They were checking Kat’s teeth and the dentist said, she has 5 cavities. My mouth dropped. I said, she brushes her teeth all the time. Her and Alyce LOVE to brush their teeth. Jordan, I have to sit on him to get him to brush his teeth. (Not really, but he is not one to brush his teeth unless he has been reminded 15 times.)
The dentist said that they weren’t cavities caused by not brushing. They were cavities caused by too much sugar. I was sitting there thinking, racking my brain. Too much sugar? They get a sweet maybe once a week. I don’t make desert hardly ever, I don’t buy candy hardly ever. They never drink pop unless they are stealing a drink of my diet pepsi when I’m not looking. Light bulb moment – juice.
Could it be from juice?
She said yep. That’s the number one cause for the cavities like this I see.
Crap.
She also said that Kat had one week to pull her loose tooth and get the one next to it loose and out or she was going to pull them when we came in for the fillings. I’m not quite sure why the one next to it had to come out – something about one pushing the other one out of the way when it came up if they didn’t come up at the same time.
We’ll jump ahead a few days here and then go back.
The tears are cuz she fell down and I was taking another picture to distract her.
She asked me to pull her tooth the other night. It was just hanging by a thread so I popped that puppy out. Notice she has fillings already. That was 2 dentist visits ago. My old dentist who just retired said that some people it doesn’t matter how much they brush they get cavities….I had asked him then the same thing. Why does Kat have cavities and Jordan doesn’t. I just didn’t get it. If he would have mentioned juice then Alyce wouldn’t have to go through what she is going to go through. 
Ok back to the dental visit. Alyce hopped up in the chair. EIGHT cavities. I just about fell over onto the floor. Horrified. Horrified. This is 8 cavities since her last visit in JUNE. She’s never had a cavity before, but 8 at once..that has to be a record. I think they get weak teeth from me. I had fillings in every tooth when I was younger. It wasn’t because I didn’t brush my teeth either. There has to be something to that predispositioned to get cavities thing also. I brush my teeth 4-5 times a day. When I finished nursing Katiana I had 9 cavities. The dentist actually told me not to brush more because I was going to brush the enamel right off my teeth.
Alyce has an appointment on Jan 5 to get those cavities filled. I have to give my 4 year old valium when we get to the dentist. Then she has to be sedated and wrapped in a pediwrap to keep her from falling off the chair – that’s their reason behind it. I can’t be back there with her.
Not happy.
After Kat’s appointment yesterday I am in a rush to find a new pediatric dentist before Alyce’s appointment.
Our old dentist always let me go back there with Katiana. He had no problem with it. Well, the new dentist that took his place has a problem with it. I had to let her go alone for her 5 fillings and to have her tooth pulled. I was …pardon my language, I don’t use this much on my blog, but I was pissed. Not just angry. Full on pissed off.
When Kat came out she was ok until she got in the car and then she started crying. She said it didn’t hurt so much when they were doing it but that it hurt really bad now. They told me she’d be numb for 45 minutes. She wasn’t. This was 5 minutes after she was done. She cried all the way home. She kicked my seat trying to deal with the pain. She cried until the ibuprofin kicked in.
Then she told me that someone back in the dentist area said to someone else, sometimes we just take x-rays for the money. Excuse me? Where in the world would my 6 year old get that from if someone in your office didn’t say it?
After she had her first fillings – which you can see in the picture there were a few – she didn’t cry at all. She left there like it was just a normal day. Her mouth was a little sore but nothing like what it was yesterday. By the next day she was fine. She got up this morning complaining about her mouth hurting again.
It was not a good experience for her at all.
I’m going to check with my sister in law’s pediatric dentist and see if they take our insurance. She said they use lasers for fillings. I don’t think I can make Alyce go through this by herself. Not with as much pain as Katiana was in yesterday.
I just don’t get the whole not going back in the room thing. I’ve always been in the room for my kids fillings. My mom was always in the room for our fillings. WTH?
I saw them take a screaming 2 1/2 year old (who had been given her valium and was still screaming) back – her mom in tears because they wouldn’t let her go back. The little girl had a cap that fell off.
Not cool. I just talked to my mom and she said that not letting us go back is bull. She actually was a dental assistant for both my old pediatric dentist and the kids’ dentist who just retired and they both always let the parents back. There is no reason not to. We’ll poke a hole through the kids’ if they turn to look at mom. Whatever.
Here’s to finding a pediatric dentist that I like. I don’t think I’ll ever find one that I like as much as I liked mine when I was kid. Dr Braley was the most wonderful man. He let me go to him even after I turned 18. I saw him until he retired when I was in my early 20’s. I wish he still was there to see my kids. I wouldn’t have to worry with him.
Oh well…another day…something else to worry about.
That’s how it goes as a mom isn’t it?
Have a great day!
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