Tooth Woes

Sean has always had dental issues. Ever since his teeth started coming in. In October 2002, at 3 years old, he had dental surgery, where they did one extraction, 4 root canals, cleaning, sealants and xrays all while he was *under*. Since then, he has lost one of his molars, the one that had the root canal. Our dentist thinks that there could be any number of reasons why it fell out. We will probably never know. Last week when Sean was at school one of his friends who loves to give hugs was hugging him from behind on the playground, Sean was trying to break free and in the flurry he bumped his mouth on the monkey bars. His remaining front tooth bleed a bit and was wiggly, but it has been wiggly before (like when he fell off his bike and caught his mouth on the curb) but it usually firms up with a few days.

I checked his tooth again today and it is still quite wiggly - even dare I say, more wiggly. I have a call in the office to see if our wonderful dentist wants us to do anything in case it falls out. My instinct says that he will say don't worry about it. When the front teeth are missing, it isn't a huge deal in the long run - it likely won't effect the permanent teeth coming in. But for example, when his molar came out, we ended up getting a spacer put in (like a loop of metal that attaches to the tooth behind it) so that the teeth wouldn't move around causing a need for braces. He will still possibly need braces, but if we hadn't done the spacer it would have been more severe and more definite.