The Trials and Tribulations of Mal's Teeth

Catching you up: Mal had a couple of cavities that involved 4 teeth, and so in January 2019, he went under anesthesia to have them fixed. He is an absolute wreck at the dentist, and would never let them examine his teeth too closely, much less actually clean them. I had been concerned about the anesthesia part, but it went very well.

The dentistry? It sucked. They ended up putting silver caps on all 4 of his bottom molars (two teeth didn't have decay, but I guess they were trying to pre-empt damage?), and his top two front teeth had roughly-tooth-colored treatments.

Problem was, the front teeth quickly discolored. They're yellowish and just unattractive. About a year ago, the right one appears to have slipped loose just a little, but it's still hanging on. Then in early 2020, one of the silver caps got a hole in it and fell out!

As I've mentioned, we have issues with the dentist, so we just decided to brush and try to keep any decay at bay. It was a tooth that didn't have existing decay, although now it has "cavities" in it, as they drilled a couple of holes, and who knows what they were thinking... 

Anyway, his mouth area is pretty dicey and we live in fear that he'll have a problem that requires professional intervention, because... it's just a whole big thing and I hate it so very much.

There have been a couple of times recently when Mal has complained that we were hurting his teeth in the back when we brushed; one of them is on the cap-less side. After a week or so of trying to figure out what to do, we realized that his 6-year-molars are coming in and the pain was probably from teething.

One tooth erupted, on the opposite side of the tooth that lost the cap. We're watching the other side.

Then guess what? Yesterday, Mal told us, "I have a tooth behind my tooth!"

Sure enough, his bottom front right tooth has the adult tooth growing in already. I've asked him over the past probably six months whether he has any teeth loose, and he has been totally disinterested in wiggling to see. Now this. The tooth has broken through all the way, and his baby tooth is a bit loose, so I've given him a week to work with it and try to get the baby tooth out. Otherwise, we'll have to go to the dentist because his adult teeth need room to come in correctly.

Grr. I had teeth that just fell right out because the adult tooth had absorbed the root and pushed them out. OF COURSE this couldn't happen to Mal, because it feels like most things have to be extra difficult for him.

Wish us luck this week. None of us wants to open up the can of worms at the dentist again.