Dental Woes

So, our dentist retired and recommended we move to a certain new dentist. His reviews were fine, so I went ahead and scheduled appointments. Imagine my surprise when they told me Jake had 8 cavities and I had 5, and Jason had 1. Neither Jake nor I had ever had any cavities. In hindsight, we don't think our previous dentist was actually doing a very good job and Jake and I paid the price. I went ahead and finished my dental work with them, but we decided to get a second opinion for Jake an have the other kids just see that dentist. Luckily, the three older kids were all cavity free (maybe they'd had cavities in some of the teeth that have fallen out?) To get my cavities taken care of it was five appointments (each 2-3 hours in the chair!), a crown and a lot of money.

The new dentist unfortunately agreed with the first one on 8 cavities, though they said he could get by with filling 5 and watching the others. They recommended we split the work into two trips, one for each side of the mouth, which made sense. We talked him through it, Jason gave him a blessing the night before, we had an audiobook for him to listen to, and bribed him with dollar store toys if he cooperated. He actually did ok. He got upset about halfway through and I had to hold him down a little so they could finish, but all in all doable. When we went back the next week to do the second half, he absolutely refused to let them do it. We rescheduled for the following week with him doing exactly the same thing. They were very nice about it, but referred us to a dentist that could sedate him to get the work finished. 

I naively thought I could call and make a sedation appointment over the phone, but no, they needed us to come in for a consultation first. And then we had to make an appointment with our pediatrician to have him sign off that Jake was healthy enough to undergo sedation. And then we had a to pay a hefty fee to have the whole office to ourselves so the dentist wouldn't have other patients to attend to during his sedation. And they recommended they fill all the cavities, even the small ones, so we didn't have the same problem in 6 months; with which we agreed, but that sent our high bill even higher. Anyway, it was quite a day, but they got all the work done and said he was a good patient (we weren't allowed to be in the room with him). The medicine made it hard from him to walk or even hold up is head or body very well for about half the day, he slurred his words and had some funny things to say, but we were done!

To say we're a bit obsessed with Jake's daily dental care now would be an understatement. We went from letting him brush his teeth at least once a day and never flossing, to us brushing for him twice a day with an electric toothbrush, flossing daily and a florid mouthwash daily. Please, please, please let him have no cavities in 6 months!!!