His smile has been changing over the past couple of years as he has lost baby teeth and his new (terrifyingly large) permanent adult teeth have taken up residence in his mouth. Like his mother, C has lots of gigantic teeth all fighting to try and find a home in his small mouth. The result has been a lot of trips to the dentist.For the past couple of months we've been heading to the dentist about twice a month so that he can keep tabs on the giant tooth party happening inside C's already crowded mouth. We've always known braces were a foregone conclusion with C - when he was just 3 years old the dentist started prepping us for that eventuality. More recently, the dentist commented that C could be "the poster child for orthodontics".
About a month ago the dentist placed a small rubber spacer between some of C's back molars to move things around a bit. He said that hopefully these rubber spacers would do the job more quickly and (my favorite part) more cheaply than putting a metal appliance in C's mouth. Since you can't go wrong with the quicker and cheaper option, we were on board.
About 2 days after the spacer was placed in his mouth, C --who had been banned from gum and all things sticky-- accidentally pulled the spacer out while eating a Tootsie Pop. Apparently I forgot to say the words "No Tootsie Pops" when reciting the list of forbidden foods. I called the dentist the next morning and he got us in to replace the spacer.
Even though we managed to hide all the sticky foods, a pattern had been established. The dentist would put a spacer inside of C's mouth and then roughly 3-4 days later C would find me and announce, "Mom, my spacer fell out again." At which point I would call the dentist and schedule an appointment where things would be looked at and another spacer would be placed in the back of his mouth. This has been going on for weeks.
So, I was not surprised when C made the announcement over pancakes last week that he had lost yet another spacer. But unlike all the past times, he added "And also, my tooth hurts when I bite down." That was definitely a new development. In the hustle bustle of the day, I forgot to call the dentist which I regretted when C came home from school later that day and told me that his tooth still hurt and that it seemed to be getting worse.
We headed off to the dentist the next morning for what I was hoping might be some good news like, "Hey that 6 year molar is finally 100% in and his back teeth look great. In fact that little rubber spacer has performed a miracle -- C doesn't need braces anymore! Oh, and that pain will go away just as soon as I snap my fingers."
Sadly though, the news wasn't so good. They took an x-ray and discovered that the baby tooth next to his 6 year molar had become somehow infected and needed to be removed. Right now. So I gave my consent and they loaded C up with Novocaine and "Happy Air" and pulled that baby tooth right out of his head. Once the tooth was out, the dentist showed me the X-Ray of C's back teeth and there was not a single tooth pointing downward. All of his teeth were pointing in various odd angles, none of which looked like they'd be helpful in the chewing process at all.
With the baby tooth now gone, there was no tooth now that could help hold the spacer in place and apparently the crookedness of those back teeth would only get worse. With no cheaper or quicker options now left to available to us, it was time to bite the bullet and get a metal appliance for my son's overcrowded mouth.
In order to start the process they took molds of his mouth (which was way more traumatic for C than pulling out his baby tooth) and told me that we'd need to come back in about 3 weeks to get more x-rays, photos and to actually get the appliance installed in his mouth. And so it seems that we have already started down the road which we knew we'd be heading down eventually. The long, winding and expensive road called orthodontics.
We got the information in the mail yesterday that laid out for us the total price of his new orthodontics as well as what portion our insurance would cover (which was not 100% like I had been blindly hoping it would be). Conveniently, the packet also contained a lovely brochure that gave us many different financing options.
Thankfully, Mr. Crackers had a little bit of stock that we sold to help cover the cost. We'll hold off on the financing option until they come back and hit us with the big guns...braces. For now we'll do what we can to juggle things a bit and I'll be taking plenty of pictures of what may someday be C's million dollar smile.
1 comment:
Ouch!
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