Pulpotomy

my goodness, has it been a whole month already since I last posted? Ah, well such is life during the busy summer.

Back in May, T2 had his regular dental exam. Out of the 5 kids, he is the only one who has a cavity (well, 2 if we are getting technical). Our dentist wanted a pediatric dentist to do the fillings since one was pretty deep and T2 is only 5. First of all, this has made me feel like a horrible mom because I let one of my kids get a cavity. I know I am being hard on myself but I still feel really bad that he now has to go through the process of getting them filled. Can't into the ped dentist for almost a month so in June we go see him. I obviously didn't understand where the 2 cavities actually were because I was looking in his mouth after this exam and noticed a small grey spot on one tooth and assumed it was the 2nd cavity we were talking about. Oh, and this trip to the ped dentist - was not for the filling just initial consultation - that insurance won't cover because they say too many check ups for allotted time period. That is a whole other subject that has me not too happy.

Fast forward three weeks to yesterday. This little grey spot on the tooth has now almost completely turned his tooth blackish/grey. I thought it was a very aggressive, fast moving cavity. The Captain took T2 to his appointment so that he could sit and hold his hand etc without 4 other siblings to corral. TWO hours after the scheduled appointment, they get home and I am anxiously waiting to see how he did. The Captain has this "you aren't going to believe this" look on his face. He then says, "you aren't going to believe what was going on with that tooth". It wasn't a cavity?, I asked. Nope. It was the nerve in his tooth, eating away the inside pulp of the tooth. It was so small three weeks ago that it didn't even show up on the xrays. The dentist said that if we hadn't had an appointment when we did, in another week the nerve would have eaten through and shattered the tooth. Mr. T2 would have been in a lot of pain. As it was, it took three passes to clean the nerve out of the tooth and one side of the tooth cracked. The Captain was really impressed with how this dentist handled the procedure and T2. All of the kids will now be seeing this dentist. He cleaned the tooth up and put an enamel coating on. This tooth will eventually fall out around 9 or 10 years old. Dentist said he doesn't know how these happen. Sometimes trauma to the mouth will cause it. Chances are T2 got whacked in the mouth at some point during everyday activities but nothing I can remember. The dentist can't remember the last time he had to do one or seen one so big in the tooth. Aren't we special?? LOL

T2 also thinks the fact that he has a cap on his cavity tooth (the deep one) is pretty cool. He walks around talking about the "gleaming booty" (taken from his Pirate Pete book) in his mouth.

Oh, what T2 had done today - a pulpotomy.