4 year old tooth needs to come out. Not happy with dentist.

[Lionbare]

Hi all,

First of all feeling incredibly guilty that my child who has just turned 4 will now have one missing front tooth till his adult ones grow. Which is in 2 years?!

But I have a niggling feeling this wasn't originally the case...

I took my son to 2 emergency dentist appointments the first one didn't take an ex-ray, and said it looks displaced and the gum will heel around it within 10 days.

The second dentist appointment was 3 hours later and this dentist wobbled the tooth.... Then took an ex-ray. The ex-ray showed the roots were fractured and so the tooth and roots need to be removed.

Why did she wobble his tooth?? I've been looking online and the is plenty of information that say moving this tooth is not what should be done as this can damage it further.

How it happened:
My son turned his head abruptly and hit it on the side of a padded chair early in the morning.

Is this my mum guilt trying to find a way out or is this valid?

Having two opposing diagnosis is difficult.
Any thoughts?

Lastly:
What about the questions to come from other children and parents? I don't want this to effect his self esteem. I also have an accusatory ex (father) who is nit picking and trying to find fault in my parenting.

Any advice ?

The dentist needed to check the tooth for mobility. He did nothing wrong. The x-ray gave the information that the root was fractured. It should have been done by the first emergency dentist. Root fractures are not as common in baby teeth so the first dentist probably thought it was just loosened through impact and would heal up.

In any case where the tooth has suffered trauma there is always a risk of the tooth nerve dying later on as a delayed response. It could have still required extraction later on even if the root wasn't fractured.

I'm not sure why you are angry with the dentist? Are you suggesting that he/she fractured the root?

If left the tooth will become infected. It needs to go. I think this is your mum guilt unfairly deflecting onto the dentist.

BTW, I'm a dentist.

Why are you angry? Do you think the second dentist made it worse?
It was an accident. What needs to be done, will be done. Ignore you ex or just keep repeating "it was an accident" because it was.

My child lost their front teeth in an accident aged 5, still waiting for adult teeth but honestly you soon get used to it. Kids start loosing teeth from 4 anyway so your child will feel part of the excitement! Mine isn't bothered in the slightest!

If the root wasn’t broken wobbling it wouldn’t have made any difference.

The general info online is aimed at people at home to say that wobbling it (implied lots) isn’t helpful for healing. A very small number of movements to diagnose is a reasonable thing to do.

Similar with ankle injuries. General advice, dont weight bear for first few days. Check they do in A&E, can you put weight on it. Once to inform diagnosis different to the ongoing advice.