How Many Cavities Does My Child Have??

On the tail of the most recent blog post with an article about Baby Root Canals, here is another article I recently wrote for Weekly Biz newspaper. This is informative for parents.

Parents, the American Dental Association recommends that a dentist examines a child within 6 months after the first tooth comes in and no later than their first birthday.  I usually recommend even EARLIER THAN THAT.  The first dental visit is a "well baby checkup" visit more for parents. I go over things to watch out for when baby teeth start coming out, drinking from a bottle, cleaning the baby's gums, etc... I also give parents a chart so they can have an idea of when baby teeth come in, and when the baby teeth change to adult teeth. I also discuss good habits vs bad habits such as thumbsucking, etc...

Hopefully, no parent will have to hear that their child has even one cavity.

8 Cavities on a 6 Year Old?

Mr. and Mrs. N are new patients in my office. Yesterday they bought their son in to see me.  He was going to start school in September and have never been to the dental office.

Every time I see an older child in my office for their first ever dental visit, I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know if their friends have told them any scary stories; I don’t know if their parents have tried to scare them into eating less junk food; I don’t know how they will react to the different instruments and noises in my office; I don’t know if there will be any crying; I don’t know if they will even want to come in!

Turns out, I had no reason to be nervous!  He was very well behaved throughout the whole visit.  He sat still while we took x-rays and watched in the mirror while I checked his teeth during the exam. 

When the x-rays were done, I looked at them together with his parents and him. To everyone’s surprise, he had 8 cavities on his back teeth. All 8 of his back teeth had a cavity on them.  The cavities started from in between the teeth. His parents were shocked. “He doesn’t eat any candy at all! He doesn’t drink juice. It’s only water or milk that he drinks! He doesn’t eat sweets! How could this have happened? What is going on? Are you sure there are 8 cavities? How could there be so many in a 6 year old child?”

After putting on my detective hat and asking questions, I found out that there were a lot of problems.  He was only brushing his teeth once a day in the morning. Not good! The best thing is brushing at least 2 times a day. Once in the morning and then, last thing at night. After the night time brushing, nothing goes in the mouth except water.  The bacteria in the mouth will eat the sugars and produce an acid that will cause cavities.  It’s not only sugar that the bacteria eat; it’s also carbohydrates and “hidden sugar”. Breads, milk, fruit, and other foods also contain types of sugar. It’s not just candy, donuts and ice cream that are problems.

He was also not flossing. Not good!  Flossing your child’s teeth will start healthy habits for life. It will also clean out food particles between the teeth that the toothbrush cannot reach.

Another big problem was that he was not using a fluoride toothpaste.  His parents had seen on the internet that fluoride was not healthy. They were concerned that he was swallowing too much fluoride using the fluoride toothpaste.  At 6 years old, my little patient should have been taught how to properly rinse and spit out.  Fluoride really does do a good job at helping prevent cavities.  By avoiding fluoride, it only added to the how quickly the cavities were formed.

After a long appointment, all the cavities were cleaned out and filled. 3 were actually deep enough that he may need a baby root canal in the future.  This was indeed a very tough and expensive lesson that Mr and Mrs N learned.

I found out later on that Mr and Mrs N are expecting their second child early next year.  They laughed and said that what they do with their first child is always an experiment.  Now they know what to do with the second child!