the dentist

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My son as a great deal of AS kids have trouble with the dentist. we found one who is an hour away. well he went last week and he has to have 4 teeth pulled and the adult molars in the back all 4 of them hav cavaties.. we need to see an oral surgeon for the 4 teeth that need to be pulled. I was wondering if any other parents on here have children with BAD teeth... I am trying to find out if its common in AS children or could the meds he takes for ADD be promoting the tooth decay. how do any of you handle the dentist thing for your AS kids.. Mine will not consider working of him unless he is sedated. i feel so bad that his teeth are in such bad shape and last week he ended up with a tooth infection and now is on antibiotics for this.. well since he started the meds for the infection he looks like he has Bells Palsay.. his face is all crooked.. we talked to my mother in law who is a dental hygentist and she told us that its because the meds are moving the infection thru... but soon he has to have 4 teeth pulled.. its been a bad week here..

Finding a dentist has been virtually impossible, as we live in a small town that is pretty backwards in a lot of ways. We travelled 5 hours to Dallas to get our son dental care, and his teeth are perfect - he just needed a cleaning and a check up. However I didn't want him unconscious for it (he wouldn't learn any coping mechanisms and it's REALLY unnecessary since it wouldn't be at all physically painful) and the docs here wouldn't do it otherwise. He takes no meds, but my husband and I both also have good teeth so the genetics are there. (At least he got one good gene)

I went to a dentist that understood about my Asperger's.

my sons dentist does understand about his aspergers and she is a childrens specialist.. but he needs to see an oral surgeon to have 4 teeth taken out.. the baby teeth. and unfortunate there are not childrens oral surgeons around here.. he does ok with the dentist we have and he knows her so he will let her touch him. so we shall see about this one...

My two children both had dental surgery done at Children's Hospital. I was very anxious about the general anaesthetic. My mother and I went into the operating room with the girls and held them as the anaesthetic was administered. A couple of hours later the girls were ready to go home with all their dental problems solved. I definitely think it was the best way to deal with all the dental work that they needed.

My sister, who is a fully grown woman, took a tranquilizer before going to the dentist to have a root canal done this month. After the dental work was done she told me how pleased she was that the tranq allowed her to get her dental work done without alot of undue freaking out.

hubby has had a fear of the dentist since childhood, and it has taken us awhile to find a dentist who is mild-mannered and doesn't yell at you every time you come in for not flossing enough...........

i too believe that the less pain the better and especially for a child. i am not one of those moms who say TOUGH IT OUT you need to learn some time.. pain is pain... and pain is 10 times as worse for a child with aspergers.. he will be sedeated when he has the 4 teeth filled at once.. either that or do 2 at a time and i would rather do the 4 at once and get it over.. now the teeth being pulledwill be a whole another story being that this Dr will not be his usual but I am sure he will be sedeated for this one also. i know that he will have less horrible memories of what he had the 1st time. the 1st time I took him (3.5 yeatrs) they sedeated him and gave him novacane. when both wore off he went crazy on me. he could not stand the sensation of the numbness wearing off.. it was like a crazy man in my back seat.. I had to pull off the highway to comfort him because he was so freaked out from the feeling..

Its taken awhile for us to find a dentist that our son trusted. He's never had a cavity but has only lost two teeth and is 12yoa. His mouth is to small for all his teeth and we are looking to get a lot of them pulled. We let him decide who he wanted as a dentist and who is is comfortable with.

I was able to find a pediatric dentist that is wonderful to my children, however it takes us one hour to get there. Now he says that my son needs braces. Anyone have experienced in having their child outfitted with braces? I am dreading this because I know it will be painful but the pediatric dentist said he is more than happy to work with the orthodist to make sure the procedure will go more smoothly.

I am just still feeling nervous over this but will wait it out for a couple of months before we jump into this.

I look forward in hearing stories from parents about this isssue.

I hate to go to the Dentist. I do a very good job taking care of my Teeth, but that's not the Point. The Assistant uses a Pollishing Device that sounds like a Drill, as I can hear an actual Drill being used, in the next room. And than she tells me not to swallow the Paste, as she shoves an Oral Vaccum into my Mouth that makes just as much noise. I have a Swallow Reflex, so it's hard for me not to swallow. Than she scrapes my Teeth with a Scraper and it sounds like Nails acrossed a Chalkboard. The part that I hate the most, is when she puts Photo Templates in the sides of my Mouth and tells me to bite down, hard. I don't like the feel of Paper in my Mouth and it hurts. I also hate it, when she floses, because she dosen't have The Soft Touch of a Mother's Hand. I should be able to pick out a Prize, just for all of that.

I know a little about tooth decay.

Do they like cheese?

If so, stock up on it and let them loose on it. Cheese is alkaline and comabts the aciicid bacteria by making the saliva alkailine. Good luck!

UGH! Yep, count us in. For awhile it seemed that Chris was able to brush his own teeth. We would check and they would look pretty clean. Now it is obvious that is not really the case. So far (crossing fingers) he has not had cavities. But he has already had 1 tooth pulled because he was not wiggling his baby tooth and the adult one came in from behind. His top front teeth are all tweaked. It looks like he will need braces eventually. I will not do that until he is much much much older. I had them too young and given the AS I am not gonna be sticking my fingers in Chris' mouth when he is a teen. He has another adult tooth that has come in from behind so I know what that means. Poor kid. Maybe the dentist can just pull a few of the baby teeth at once and spare him. Our dentist is great! We drive to a nearby city and she specializes in kids.

Katherine

I'm not bad about the dentist (although I hate it--the nasty tastes are the worst!), but I really feel for your son who has to have teeth taken out. I had to have four pulled (and will have to have another pulled, probably by this December, if it doesn't fall out on its own), and I can't do it under local--I HAVE to be under general anesthesia, or I can and do feel the pain of the pulling. Local anesthetic doesn't seem to work on me, as I have had problems with it before and could feel EVERYTHING when under it; I just couldn't move the area in question. It was a lot like having 'sleeping' body parts.

Oddly enough, although I do not brush too often (almost never in middle school, now roughly once a night), I have never had a cavity and have reasonably good teeth, if slightly yellow ones. I think that's mostly because of my diet; I drink a LOT of milk and eat quite a lot of broccoli and other calcium-rich foods. Maybe that might help your son out a little?

Dunemom, I currently have braces, and I find that the orthodontist is much more pleasant than the dentist once the braces are actually on and they aren't taking models of your teeth (I nearly throw up when they take the bites). The reason that the orthodontist is better is that they don't really do much that hurts (it starts hurting about an hour after visiting the dentist, but it stops by the next day, usually) and there's almost nothing that's really irritating while you're in the dentist's chair. I dislike the dentist MUCH more. Of course, I usually go torpid in the orthodontist's chair, so that might be why...

We have a pediatric dentist who will do sedation if warranted. So far, my 3 year-old has only needed some tartar scraped off the sides of his back teeth. (He won't let us get the toothbrush that far back).

It only took about 3 minutes but stressed our little guy out so much that his stomach went all acidic and he became really gassy. (He is tube-fed, so we see what goes on inside his tummy whenever we have to 'burp' him.) Physically, it took him a good three days to recover from that insult to his system.

So far, it looks to be a delicate balance between how much unsedated work can be done and the risks and preparation we have to take to have him sedated. If anything needs to be pulled or filled, you betcha we'll have it done in the hospital. We've learned over time not to have him do any outings or social events within a day or two of doctor visits.