Talking About Teeth

LB had his first visit with the dentist last week.  I was more anxious to take him to the dentist than I was with our older son because, let's face it, LB eats and drinks all the time and we don't stop to brush his teeth any more often than we do with his older brother. We like to make sure LB's getting the calories he needs, so during the day he snacks a lot and his drinking cup is usually filled with milk or juice instead of plain water.  At night, we brush his teeth before bed, but he can sometimes wake up and eat once or even twice during the night and we don't really want to get him all agitated and keep him awake any longer than necessary by brushing his teeth after each feeding.  I was honestly worried about all that sugar sitting on his teeth throughout the day and during the night.  I was convinced that the dentist would take one look and scold us for not taking better care of those little teeth.

Before our appointment, I visited the FOD Support website and printed out the MCADD Information for Clinicians because I wanted to be able to hand something to the dentist to explain LB's metabolic disorder so that he would understand the feeding system we've been working with for the last 15 months and the importance of making sure he eats often, even if it's in the middle of the night and even if we can't immediately brush his teeth afterwards.  I really like this resource because I've been told that in 8 years of medical education, metabolic disorders are covered in only about a paragraph.  If that is true for doctors, I imagine it may be even less for dentists and I wanted him to have a piece of reference material for LB's chart and his own education.

I was very pleased with the dentist's reaction to LB's teeth -- they are fine!  He did a regular cleaning and brushed them with a fluoride treatment that he assured us would help keep the enamel strong despite his feeding needs.  I was also pleased that he asked a lot of questions about MCADD and LB's medical history and seemed genuinely interested in learning more.  He even asked his assistant to leave LB's chart on his desk so that he could read over the clinician information sheet later that day.  I'm not sure that MCADD can have any detrimental effects on teeth, other than the concern about keeping them clean despite the need for frequent feedings I guess, but I told him that if he had any questions, he could contact our metabolic team for additional resources.  In all, I think it was a great (and very reassuring) visit.

The big news in teeth now is that LB has managed to sprout 3 new ones in the last week!  He was standing at 7 for a couple months, but his gums were definitely lumpy at his dental appointment so we were sure more would be popping through soon.  Sure enough, he finished out the last of the front bottom teeth and got two molars shortly after his appointment bringing his tooth total to a whopping 10!  We are officially half way through teething - hooray!  Now that's something to smile about =)