Losing Teeth

Today we had our first semi-serious injury scare.  I was getting the boys ready to leave the

house so I could take Owen to school.  They were both in the kitchen when I ran into the

living room to grab Joe's sippy cup.  I heard a big thump, followed by a scream from Joe I

had never heard before.  I ran in to find him lying on his back with something white in his

mouth.  As I got closer to him I realized it was his tooth.  I immediately picked him up and

tried to calm him down.  I looked in his mouth and saw his tooth hanging down much

lower than all of his other teeth, but not completely out.  I had no idea what to do.  

Who do I call?  Where do I take him?  What if it falls out while we're driving 

and he swallows or worse yet chokes on the tooth?  

I decided to call Ryan.  Sensing I was in a bit of a panic, he remained very calm and suggested I call our pediatrician.  By the time I was on the phone with the pediatrician's

office, Joe was already over the traumatic fall and was laughing at Owen.  That definitely

helped lighten the mood and helped me to calm down a little bit.  At least I knew he wasn't 

in serious pain and that made me feel better.  The bleeding had also stopped for the most

part which made me feel better too.

Our pediatrician's office referred me to a pediatric dentist and let them know we were on our way.  I dropped Owen off at school knowing full well it would make things a lot easier at the dentist.  Once we got to the dentist we only waited a few minutes before she saw Joe.  I

held him on my lap in the chair while she and her assistant tried to look at his mouth.  Truth

be told, this was the hardest part of the day.  I had to hold his arms down with a bear hug while they tried to open his mouth.  She wanted to apply some pressure to stop the

bleeding so she took a piece of gauze and pressed on his gum.  He screamed louder,

harder, and sadder than I have ever heard.  Tears started welling up in my eyes.

She pulled the gauze out of his mouth and his tooth was now sideways and basically

completely out.  She grabbed it with the gauze and that was the end of it.  

No more tooth for Joe.    

The tooth was huge.  It came out it one big piece, root and all.  What's funny is when kids

lose their baby teeth all you see is the actual tooth.  I'm not quite sure what happens to the

root in the whole tooth losing process, but after seeing Joe's tooth it makes me very curious.

His had a root that was longer than the actual tooth itself.  If you look in the picture below,

you can see the change in color between the root and the tooth.  So crazy.

After looking in his mouth again, the dentist wanted us to go see an oral surgeon just to take

a second look.  She said there was a laceration (cut) in his gums the length of the root and

they might want to stitch it up.  She also thought there might be a small fracture in the bone that held his tooth because of how things moved when she pressed on it.  She called

around to find someone who could see us right away.  This was the first time 

we had ever met this dentist, so I really appreciated her going 

above and beyond to take such great care of us.  

She found someone who could see us that afternoon so Ryan came home from work to stay

with Owen and I took Joe.  The oral surgeon didn't want to do an xray because of how

young Joe is.  He simply took a quick look in Joe's mouth.  He told me that even if there

was a small fracture, kids Joe's age heal really quickly.  There was really nothing we could

do other than to feed him soft foods for a week and let him heal on his own.  

With the help of a little Motrin Joe seems to be in good spirits.  It makes me sad that he was

in pain, and I feel bad knowing he'll have a missing tooth for the first 7 years of his life until

his adult tooth grows in.  But overall for our first traumatic injury, I'd say we did pretty well.

 After surveying the injury and the site of the fall, I think I know what happened.  There is a

small play kitchen in the back of our kitchen where the kids play.  Joe was walking around

with one of the pieces of plastic silverware in his mouth.  He fell with it in his mouth and since it was behind his tooth it pushed his whole tooth forward and snapped it right off

at the root.  Sounds awful, but hopefully it was just a quick moment of pain for him.