Hard Lesson Learned

TrulyBlessed wrote: We took Alyssa, our 4 yr old into the dentist today. She had all four front teeth pulled, 3 crowns w/root canals and 5 fillings. Unfortunately, the medicine did not work to put her to sleep and it was heartwrenching to hear her screams in the waiting room.

The nice thing is the dentist let Papa stay in the room with her the whole time and she did doze in and out, she is still sleeping now.

Lesson learned today - do not give your young children lots of applejuice. The sad part is Alyssa had to suffer for my mistakes.

We have to take her in the morning to have the mold made for the space maintainer.

luvmykids replied: I'm sorry it didn't go well, I can imagine it was sickening for you

Was she screaming in pain, or was it more because she was scared?

I hope she feels better soon, not many adults could handle that much work done at once

sparkys2boys replied: Oh wow thats alot of work done at once. I am sorry she had to go through that, I hope she feels better soon.

TrulyBlessed replied: Thank you! We tried to have her take the medicine that would put her to sleep, but she kept gagging on it, so it didn't put her in a deep sleep. Papa (who went in the room) said that she was crying more out of fear. They did use the gas, but he said they had to monitor it, so every time she would start waking up is when I heard her crying. She is still sleeping right now, so I'm not sure how much this affected her emotionally. I just hope it isn't too much. I have definitely learned my lesson in this one. Our excuse for waiting is we did not have dental insurance and finances were tight, but that's no excuse and I know that now.

amynicole21 replied: Oh man, that sounds like a HORRIBLE experience - for both you and for her.

HuskerMom replied: That's a lot of work at one time! Hope she starts feeling better soon!

austins mom replied: ohhh that poor baby.. i hope she has little pain

luvmykids replied:
Don't beat yourself up about that, we don't have it either and I felt horrible for the few weeks between finding out what she needed and having the money to do it....It's a less than ideal situation but the main thing is it's taken care of now

Hillbilly Housewife replied: My step sister's son had to have his teeth pulled for the same reason.... it's more because he had juice in a sippy cup at night... the joice would just sit in his mouth and rot the teeth... . He also had to have the silver caps put on. He looks so... pitiful..... with a mouth full of metal. He's 5.

CantWait replied: Don't feel bad. Honestly bottles at night with anything other then juice weren't even a concern when Robbie was a baby. I swear it only became a big thing, with all rights of course recently.

As for having the money, unfortunetly we can't always have enough on hand for what's important, it's not your fault.

Sam & Abby's Mom replied: Wow . I hope your little one is feeling better. Thanks for sharing -- you'll probably save someone else from going through the same.

ZandersMama replied: my zander is there too his problem was that his teeth came in early, and he has my teeth anyway (bad) he has a spacer now, and 2 superman teeth (capped). He never had a bottle (breast fed), and didnt have much juice. Some kids just have weak teeth, not your fault.

grandma replied: OMG - that is an outragious amount of work to be done in one day. I think I would have gotten an second opinion. Seems like they would have done the pulling, crowns and fillings in three appointments. That baby will probably not ever want to return to the dentist.
I'm sure it broke your heart......

TrulyBlessed replied: Update - she woke up about 8:30 p.m. and she has had two bowls of soup and some water. She is walking alittle shaky, so I am trying to keep her on the couch. She doesn't seem to be in any pain right now and has not mentioned any "bad" memories. We are taking her in the morning to get the mold done for her spacer, that shouldn't be too bad of an experience.

Thank you all so much for your encouraging words, it has really uplifted me tonight and reminded me not to beat myself up. I realize what was handled wrong, thankfully, we were able to fix it and now we can move on and do our best to prevent this from happening again. Thank you again!!! I really appreciate it!!!!

luvmykids replied:
I was really suprised that our dentist wanted to get Macie finished in one appointment...the two fillings, root canal and crown, but she really spent a lot of time talking to me about it and the biggest reason they do that with kids is if the experience is horrific for the child but the work isn't done, it's that much worse for the next visit. Plus the little teeth make it possible for the dentist to move pretty quickly, so although an adult would be there for hours and hours to get it all done, Macie was out of there in an hour and it was done, over with, and we don't have to go back again.

Boo&BugsMom replied:
Yep, a friend of mine at church had that similar issue with her daughter. The issue was her adult teeth were coming in and her baby teeth were not falling out. She has had to go 3 times already to get teeth pulled from what I remember. Sometimes those things happen and there is no prevention that can be done.

I hope she's better soon.

:.Mrs_Mommy.: replied: I feel your pain. I'm so sorry.

My daughter Lily has had the worse luck with her teeth. As a baby she broke her teeth when she fell on a toy, they pulled 4 of them (her front top ones) when she was about 3 1/2 and they just grew in this year. About 6 months ago her face on the right side swelled up horribly. I took her to the dentist for an emergency appt and they pulled 3 of them that day, she had gotten an infection in the root of one tooth and in the matter of a few hours while she was at school it had spread to 2 other teeth. She now has a spacer on and will have that on until she is 10 or so.

It is horrible when you feel helpless, or that you made a mistake but fixing it now is the most important thing. I hope she is doing better.