We started taking Oliver to the dentist when he was 18 months old because inspite of my obsessive brushing of his teeth it looked like he was starting to have some tooth decay. It was really upsetting to me. After a pretty easy going exam by a local pediatric dentist it was decided that it was probably tooth decay and that we should take Oliver in every three months for flouride treatments and start using a small amount of flouride toothpaste on his teeth. SO that's what we started doing. At that point Oliver wasn't on our dental insurance. But we took him in like clockwork! We put him on our dental insurance as soon as open enrollment came around. So we took him in to see a new pediatric dentist last week because (even though I LOVED the other dentist he was not one of our providers for our insurance). I think that might have been a blessing in disguise. This dentist went ahead and did a x-rays and an exam on Oliver. (Something the other dentist had thought Oliver was too young for and probably was a year ago) The x-rays revealed that the discoloration of his teeth is not actually tooth decay. It was nowhere to bee seen on the x-rays. It looks like it's a staining on the surface that was probably caused during the development of his teeth.
To say that, that was a relief to me is an under statement. I can't even express the anxiety I would feel everyday (twice a day) when I was brushing his teeth feeling like there was something I had done wrong to make his teeth decay at such an early age. (Oliver never went to bed with a bottle, didn't use a pacifier or anything like that). So I was beyond relieved to hear that it was not decay after all!
Oliver did GREAT with his real cleaning! I keep trying to use that to my advantage when I'm brushing his teeth. He's so bad for me and just willingly opened his mouth for the dental hygeneist who cleaned his teeth. Thank goodness it worked out so well!
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