ds Adult teeth have come through discoloured. Any advice welcomed!

[zippyswife]

Ds’ adult teeth are coming through discoloured/mottled yellowy and marked. I’m so upset for him (though obviously haven’t drawn attention to it as I don’t want him aware of it) I’ve asked the dentist what I can do about this but it was hard discussing it as ds was there. The dentist couldn’t suggest a solution. Ds takes such good care of his teeth. I’m gutted for him. Is there anything I can do? His diet is good. Dentist suggests it could be hereditary or due to infant illness.

Yes DS too, more mottled than discoloured - and he has never had an antibiotic or an illness worse than a cold.

DD’s teeth are started to get loose and I am stressed about the whole thing.

DD has a darker line across her front teeth. She'll also need braces and the dentist has said it will be no problem to sort it out once she's had her teeth straightened. I expect either some sort of whitening or vaneers. Probably will cost a fair bit though!

DD didn't have any birth stress or anything, she did have one course of antibiotics. TBH I have dodgy teeth so I think it's probably genetic.

DD (19) has this on her front teeth, we were told that it is missing patches of enamel. Her dentist said it was probably due to her falling at some point when she was little and damaging the enamel before they came through.

She's (still) having orthodontic treatment at the moment (quite extensive, she had extra teeth on roof of her mouth that needed removing, no adult incisors at all so will need bridges when the rest is done, she's had 2 operations and she currently has a gold chain attached to the tooth that they are pulling down and her fixed brace to pull a tooth from the roof of her mouth into place) fixing the teeth with missing enamel will need treatment when this is all finished. We're 6 years into orthodontic treatment at this point, and about a year left apparently, and it has made a massive difference to her. Thank god for the NHS!

My eldests adult teeth are sadly quite yellow. His baby ones were lovely and white, but the adult ones came through yellow. It looks like it's pretty much all of them. His dentist has said are are fine and well looked after, it's just the colour. He is nearly 10. May look into the painting on stuff when he is due to start secondary as it does look like he just hasn't brushed them, don't want him to be picked on because of it.

Dd has this too. The dentist mentions it every time we go, she says it's due to me having a temperature when I was pregnant.

Makes me feel like the worst mother every time, not helped by ds having perfect teeth.

My DS' teeth are mildly affected by this - my DH's teeth came through similarly. DH's teeth look fine as an adult. Our dentist has painted a couple of DS' teeth because the enamel was weak, but he looks after his teeth, and apart from one tiny filling before we realised about the weak enamel, he gets a clean bill of health at every check up. He's 12 now, and, if anything, the weak enamel issue makes him really careful about never missing a tooth brushing. He insists on it, even at sleepovers, bless his slightly wonky chops

Also, I think the dentists are a bit shit to blame the mum for it - my DS has never had antibiotics or anything that could have caused it (aware that we are blessed and lucky in that regard - he's a super healthy kid) - it's definitely hereditary in our case.

DS1 (8) has some discoloured adult teeth.

Our dentist has said that his teeth look healthy, so it’s a cosmetic issue, and he said that when DS1 is older, he can have veneers on his teeth if the discolouration is bothering him.

Our dentist said he thought the discolouration was most likely down to a bump to the mouth when the adult teeth were forming. The talk about antibiotics above is interesting though, DS1 was on IV antibiotics for a few days when he was a newborn, I’ll have to ask the dentist about that. Although I suppose the why’s of it don’t really affect how it can be dealt with.

Mine are like this (or were). I was told it was fluorosis (too much fluoride in the diet). In our area they used to add it to the water, plus I used to eat toothpaste .

I had veneers done when I was 18.. it was expensive though, and they don't last forever so will need to get them re done at some point.

I'd leave it until he's older and try to boost his confidence in other ways.

My son has this and it’s apparently quite common in autistic children as a developmental quirk allegedly.

His adult teeth are coming through much more even in colour than his baby ones. Dr recommended high fluoride toothpaste or basically adult toothpaste from when he was three.

There's a few things going on on this thread and a lot of misinformation

Its not blaming the mum to say an illness in pregnancy is a potential cause. It's not your fault, it's just one of those things, and an illness is a known cause. Having said that it could be anything as I said above so dont fixate on that as the cause. It's normally something happens at the point of calcification or enamel development, so a knock, illness that type of thing. However it can just happen, and like I said pointless finding the cause as it doesn't change the hypoplasia.

Antibiotics are unlikely to be the the cause, tetracycline cause a specific type of staining but not antibiotics in general.

There are 2 conditions : hypoplaaia and fluorosis. These are different things and I can't say which one your DS has without seeing his teeth. One is weaker enamel, the other is cosmetic

Adult teeth are yellow, much more yellow than baby teeth. Again this is an entirely different thing, neither hypoplasia or fluorosis just normal yellow teeth. Can be sorted if wanted by whitening in the future.

A dentist will be able to tell just by looking at the teeth whether they are hypoplastic or not. If a consultant has said that certain teeth are unaffected certain teeth are unaffected

Either way lots of children have mottling of their teeth. It can be sorted but when they are older.

A child I know had discoloured second teeth when they came through (sort of a brown coating). This wore off after a few months and they are now a normal colour (and perfectly healthy).

my son had one adult tooth that came through very very yellow/ almost brown.
Somehow it's become less and less coloured over the years and now at the age of 13 is only noticeable if you're looking for it

Thank you all for the replies. I’ve found it really reassuring. Really appreciate it.

I have badly discoloured teeth due to dental fluorosis - haven't had veneers due to the cost. But although they look bad, they couldn't be more healthy - I'm in my 30s and have never even needed a filling; never mind any other dental work. It's really disappointing that our society values white teeth and judges people with yellow ones as having poor dental hygiene, when in many cases, it's simply not true.

My two eldest had teeth that came through quite yellow with white mottling. They had them whitened before they went to uni and it worked a treat. They are in their mid twenties now and have topped up since. Neither has any fillings so they have nice, healthy teeth.

When he's older he can have composite bonding to improve the appearance for around 2-300 per tooth

certain drugs given in early childhood (even when a baby, long before adult teeth form) can have this as a side effect. was your DS ever seriously ill or hospitalised for anything? or needed treatment for anything as a newborn?

OP the info in @DishRanAwayWithTheSpoon 2 posts are spot on.