Another Tooth Will Be Pulled

This isn't going to be long because I really need to get on with catching up on reading posts by my favorite blogger, 16 Blessings' Mom and then get my too-tired bumbum to bed.

First, a little bit of background about the most monumental pediatric dental case ever known. Okay, maybe not the biggest....but when it's your situation, and your child involved, you don't have dental insurance (we do have medical, just not dental), and you've spent enough money out-of-pocket in the last two years to put someone through a few years of college or at least pay for a pretty decent late model car, it feels like it's the biggest dental problem ever.

Basically, to tell it in layman's terms, Reiss was born without sufficient enamel on his teeth. As a result, almost immediately following the time when his teeth started coming in they began to deteriorate. At first, we started noticing little pit marks in his teeth. Initially, these were treated with flouride varnish that was supposed to help stop or slow the decaying process of his teeth. Unfortunately, this did not work so by the time he was two years old and had twenty teeth, fourteen of them were bad.

To fix Reiss's teeth we had to go to a children's hospital and have him put under. Four teeth were covered with silver caps, nine teeth were rebuilt with resin, and one tooth - his left front tooth - was so decayed that it had to be pulled. If all that weren't bad enough, the dentist who did the work didn't even keep what was left of the tooth to give to us. I was very sad about this, by the way. It didn't matter to me that the tooth was extremely decayed and barely resemblant of a normal shaped tooth - it was my baby's first tooth to come out and I would have liked to have it for keepsaking. The teeth that were rebuilt with resin are basically "false teeth" made of a special dental resin that covers and adheres to what little was left of his own natural teeth.

One month after all the work was complete, his right front tooth broke off and had to be rebuilt again. Somewhere around six months later, it happened again. Now, close to one year later, the same tooth that has been rebuilt a total of three times has become absessed and has to be removed. So back to the dentist we go and out another few hundred dollars goes from our checking account. You gotta love being middle class! The rich can afford top medical and dental procedures. Many (I'm not saying "all" people, so don't get your panties in a bunch here!) poor people get it handed to them. And then people like my family - middle class America - have to pay out the rear. Seriously, it's not fair but what can ya' do????