Brookelyn's first trip to the dentist

I broke down & called the dentist today about Brookelyn.  All four of her molars have been swollen something terribly all summer long.  The other day I noticed her bottom right molar looked like raw hamburger & was discolored some.  I was thinking it might be infected.

Dr. Gehring is really good with my kids.  Brookleyn was a bit freaked out when I laid her down but then she noticed the tv in the ceiling and I held her hands and sat right next to her and she did ok.  Dr. Gehring looked in her mouth and came to the conclusion that she had a cyst on her right bottom molar rupture.  Samantha had cysts on her gums when she would get teeth, but nothing that ever looked like this.  Sam's just looked like small blisters on her gums.  At one point we had some of them lanced and I swore up and down I'd never do that again!

Dr. Gehring said that she has some really thick, really tough tissue on her gums on all four molar spots.  It looks as though she's going to get some nasty cysts on all four of them.  He said that because it looks like the tissue is so thick and tough that the cysts will likely have to rupture several times before the molars can break through completely.  He said that I should give her teething rings, spoons, etc. to chew on and to encourage her to chew on things.  He said that her chewing on things will help apply pressure to the cysts which will then help the cysts rupture which will in turn result in those molars being able to break through and stay through sooner.  Dr. Gehring said I could lance the cysts at home with a plastic fork or spoon too.  I was talking to my sister later and asked her how in the heck I'd do that.  She told me that I would just use the spoon or fork to apply pressure to the cyst until is basically explodes.  Awesome.  Dr. Gehring said don't be surprised if the cysts start bleeding because they will likely bleed.  More awesomeness.

I also talked to Dr. Gehring about Nash.  I've noticed over the last few months that as his two front top & two front bottom teeth have come in that his mouth is screaming "I NEED BRACES!"  He's got one top tooth that laps over the bottom tooth and one bottom tooth that laps over the top tooth.  Dr. Gehring said that sometimes they do that until they are in all the way.  I told Dr. Gehring that these teeth are for sure in all the way.  He asked me if it was a cross bite.  I asked him what that meant.  He pulled out a card with some pictures on it and pointed to one.  I then had the pleasure of saying, "Yep.  That's EXACTLY what it looks like."  Dr. Gehring told me that that is in fact a cross bite and if it's bad enough it can cause an under bite (Caleb has a ferocious under bite).  I asked if I should schedule an appointment to bring him in before his next well check in November.  Dr. Gehring said we had better get a look at it and see what kind of plan we need to make.  Sounds to me like we're going to be making a plan for braces for Nash next Wednesday, Sept. 12 at 1:30 pm!

Apparently we are leaving the "We love our ENT" phase and entering the "We love our dentist and orthodontist" phase.  Good times never end over here!