Toddler complaining of toothache..

[Louise26x]

Dd4 has a bad back tooth. We brush her teeth twice a day and she actually enjoys it, but for some reason her bath tooth has got decay. She only drinks water but does have chocolate. She had a lot of antibiotics as a baby.

It looks awful, and smells 😩

She said it hurts, but obviously we are all on lockdown!

What do I do? I feel bloody awful.

Forgot to add she’s been to the dentist since she was 1 Every 6 months. She’s actually due to go again. Last time they said she had chipped that tooth and put some stuff on it.

If you ring 111 there is a dental option.
Some areas have dental hubs where they are seeing patients in full PPE. If not, they can get a dentist to speak to you to give you advice.

Is there any swelling? If it smells its potentially infected, she might need a course of antibiotics. I think you need to ring your dentist first and see what they say. Often children get toothache because they have food stuck in the hole so give it a really good clean with some flouride toothpaste

Then you do really need to look at her diet and brushing. Tooth decay doesnt just happen and antibiotics dont cause decay. If its her back tooth its only been out for 2 years, thats pretty extreme. Something has caused it and you need to find out what otherwise its going to happen to the rest of her teeth

She drinks a lot of soya milk, she’s dairy free.

I hate sweets. None of the dc are allowed them.

She does need to cut down on chocolate.

Its not just sweets and chocolate, its any sugar. So yoghurts, dried fruit etc. Anything that contains sugar.

Is it sweetened or unsweetened soya milk?

Did you get in touch with your dentist?

She has a lot of dried fruit! Didn’t even think of that 😩 she loves raisins.
It’s the Alpro kids one?

Not yet but will do tomorrow

Is it dairy free chocolate? That stuff is sweet and nasty 🤮

Def give pain relief as well.

Dried fruit may well be the culprit. My dentist says she’d rather kids had plain chocolate like chocolate buttons or bars than sweets or dried fruit as the sticky nature means they get into the teeth crevices and cause decay.

Hopefully the emergency dental service can see her- toothache is the pits poor girl.

Dried fruit sticks to their teeth, so you bathe their teeth in sugar for a long time.

Junior soya milk does have added sugar, its not massively high in sugar but its about the number of exposures to sugar. You want to limit the number of times their teeth are exposed to sugar in a day, any food or drink that contains sugar counts and will cause tooth decay when cpnsumed frequently. The guidelines state 4 or less exposures, thats your 3 meals plus one more. So if they are drinking soya milk between meals thats a lot of exposures to sugar, especially if they are sipping the drink.

Definitely give pain relief. As I said above give it a really good clean out in case theres any food stuck