my big brave boy

this monday we had tyren's second dental work visit.

here he is with the gas mask on:
isn't he just stinkin cute? adam says he looks like a little rudolf the red nosed reindeer, LOL!

i found it humorous that i named that pic "tyrgas"...get it?....tear-gas? (if you don't know how to pronounce my son's name...its TEER, so this is a funny joke, get it? LOL!!)

anyway he did awesome again! no problems at all! he got a little wiggly, but nothing major. dr was impressed again!

and this time he climbed right into the seat and had no problem with getting the gas (his first time), and even got novicain shots (numbed with a topical first) and had more extensive drilling.

he did just fine!

still have a few more teeth to do. but we're really trucking along fine! pretty soon he'll be done...the worst is done now, i think...the rest are smaller cavities i think.

i think the key here is that he doesn't keep tyren in the chair, manhandling him for very long. like 15-20min tops. pretty dang cool!

and having a movie to be able to watch while he's there in the chair helps too, LOL! we bring our own so we know that it will be something he wants to see.

oh man, its so nice to have this stress mostly over. we still have a few more visits before all his cavities are treated, but now that he's gotten these 2 visits out of the way, and with flying colors, my stress level has pretty much dropped off. phew! i tell ya!

pretty amazing to remember that this is the same boy that the other dentist wanted to refer to be put under for general anesthesia!! yikes! wow am i ever glad that we found dr doug and he was able to work with tyr...AND that we found pinatta's view!! pinatta rocks!!

my brave brave boy

i first wrote about tyren's dental situation here. and then latest post about it was here.
well...
i can't seem to find any posts that i filled in the blanks in between...so i'll give a brief recap and fill in the blanks.

found out tyren has cavities (i already knew it, i could see them...the fronts of at least 3 of his side teeth had brown areas near the gums), from first dentist. bad experience, tyr freaked out at the first dentist and wouldn't calm down til we left so no one could even look at him. (although for some reason he was ok with the xrays...i think because they did that first and after that he had had enough.)

dentist #1 referred him to an out of town place to do his teeth under general anesthesia...i freaked out and started researching other options...

took him to dentist #2 to get a second opinion (read that first post for all the drama surrounding this whole thing). tyr wouldn't even LOOK at the dentist, much less let him look at his teeth. flipped out again, crying and freaking out. no good.

took him home and over the course of a couple months, bombarded him with tons of books about going to the dentist and stumbled upon this FABULOUS dvd on the net:

played it over and over and OVER for him...(he LOVES it! and its REALLY well made, so even *I* don't mind watching it!) and did just as they recommend on the dvd...we "played dentist." a lot.

took him to dentist #2 for a new visit. NO PROBLEM. he was happy and relaxed and even let "dr doug" look in his mouth. wow, new child!

dr doug said he could try to do the work with gas and do it a little at a time...made new appt.

mistake: i made the appt for 2 days before babyfest. dumb dumb dumb.

got to the appt after prepping tyr ahead of time about the visit and practicing and everything and yet, he flipped out in the car and wouldn't get out of his car seat. hysterical crying again. no go.

i figured it was a bad week. the week before babyfest is a very very stressful week for us all...with all the work i have to do for it.

rescheduled appt for 2 weeks later for our LAST TRY at doing this with dr doug. talked to tyr and explained that if he didn't let dr doug do his teeth that we were going to have to go to a new dentist that we don't know and that new dr might have to put him to sleep to do his teeth (the truth, even though i didn't want to explain this to him...but i was running out of options and really needed him to cooperate!) he said ok, he'd let dr doug do it. i didn't want to get my hopes up too high.

went back this monday for the new appt.

here's my boy:

totally fine, relaxed, letting dr doug do the work!!

some of the things that i think really made a difference were:

• pinatta's view...hands down the best thing we did for this whole situation...especially since it gave us the idea to play dentist!
• playing dentist
• having the WHOLE family go to the appt with him (he seemed to like all the extra emotional support. the times he freaked out daddy wasn't there, one time maeven wasn't there.)
• having daddy go into the actual room with him (they only let one of us go and when we asked him which he wanted, he chose daddy without hesitation...i think he was so right to do this because i was a bundle of nerves! daddy was cool as a cucumber.)
• having a way cool dentist that is kind and patient. :)

so he got the first 3 teeth done! no gas, no anesthesia, no problem!! next we need to get his molars worked on...dr doug said he will probably need the gas for that and to use some anesthesia (i'm guessing he means novacain). but at this point, tyren is pretty cool about the whole thing...so i'll make sure we ALL go again, to up our odds of it going well, and we'll be playing dentist again! dr doug even gave us the rubber thing they put on his nose for the gas so that he can play dentist with it! :)

god, i canNOT tell you how friggin relieved i am about all this!!!

next appt is in a month. i'm not too worried but i know i'll be a bit nervous the day of, until its done. but HALLELUJAH that we managed to finally get past the worst of it!!

and to think that we could have just gone along with that first dentist and taken him to a town over an hour away to have strangers put my baby to sleep and take him away from me! i cannot even imagine how hard that would have been...the idea made me practically hyperventilate!!!

PHEW! i cannot tell you how much weight is off my chest now!!!

stuck between a rock and a hard place

god i hate it when life happens like this. i get stuck in this cycle of worry and stress and feel the world is spinning. i know we'll make it through this, and probably everything will be fine eventually...but in the meantime i'm so friggin scared and stressed and it SUCKS!

my baby boy has cavities. not a surprise...he fights tooth brushings tooth and nail. we've been very lax about it til recent months. we still at least once, often more times, a week have to literally sit on him and pin his limbs to brush those teeth. *sigh* it seriously sucks. we've tried everything we can think of...this boy is really stubborn. we really have tried to make it fun...we've tried SOOOO much! but it comes down to pinning him down so often. sometimes we can distract him and sometimes he's mostly fine...never easy, but he'll open his mouth for short periods sometimes...i think he's getting better. he has to. because now he has cavities.

and the dentist wants to send him to a clinic an hour away and be put under general anesthesia and that SCARES THE CRAP OUTTA ME!!!

we took him to the dentist for the first time last week...and for some reason he tolerated the xrays (maeven had just gone before him and he was still sorta figuring out what was going on, i think)...but after watching maeven finish getting her teeth cleaned and it was his turn, he flipped out and would NOT let them touch him and started hysterical crying. darn near broke my heart.

and i couldn't process what they were telling me at the time...they backed off the cleaning and said he needed to be referred out anyway...because of his age and the amount of cavities (they still haven't told me how many, just that its "at least 3" because they "refer out once they hit 3") and because of his anxiety. they didn't even really try. they just immediately backed off, which i was sorta glad of but the more i think of it, i wonder if there might have been a better way to approach him. to try to gain his trust. well but my son IS stubborn and once he's worked up its hard to calm him...i don't know...

anyway so the dentist never even met him. he was busy with another patient...i got the distinct impression they just wanted to send this crying child "problem" quickly elsewhere. dentist couldn't even come meet him! he's never been particularly friendly though, so doesn't surprise me.

i took my crying son and went home and he told me over and over for the rest of the day that he didn't want to go to the dentist anymore. but the xrays showed he needs work done. *sigh*

i really hoped that we could ride out things until he was old enough to brush himself. i really hoped that we would just luck out. but we didn't. so now what?

well i'm going round and round with all kinds of options...and none feel all that great.

so i asked my friends on the apmommies list for advice and another dentist was recommended to me and i really wanted a second opinion. my husband feels like he just doesn't like the idea of having to drive an hour to a place we know nothing about...but for me i'm hoping that we don't have to do general at all...i don't know i guess i want a miracle or something.

called and made an appt with the 2nd dentist, called the first dentist to see about getting the xrays sent...was told sure, fine, get a second opinion but then don't come back. shock. disbelief. i was like, "uh, excuse me?" so basically sure you can get a second opinion but you cannot come back once the records are sent out. i told them that was screwed. they told me that was their office policy. talked to the supervisor, she went around with why i should just do this and that he won't remember anything (and i'm thinking, that's not what i'm asking), and finally says that the policy is in place to help prevent parents from doctor hopping, which will stress the kids out more. yeah bullshit. this is nuts! so now i don't want to go back anyway!

but here's the catch...they take healthy families...this new dentist doesn't. *sigh* but i took tyr there anyway, to see if he could see anything that might make things better or something, i don't know. found out that the new dentist thinks that policy is weird too...and no, they don't have a similar policy...they think parents should be able to get second opinions.

took tyr to the new dentist and tyr freaked out again and wouldn't even let the doctor look at him, much less look in his mouth. no way no how. freakazoid city. NOTHING would distract him.

so now what? well the new dentist is saying i could look into local options that take healthy families...i don't really like this option because the hospital that does it is a really icky one. its where you go if you have no insurance and they treat you like cattle there...i know because i had to go there a few times years ago when i didn't have insurance and i hated every minute of it. the place gives me the heebie jeebies. don't want to take my child there.

the other thing that gnaws in the back of my mind is why this first dentist referred us out of town...he said he doesn't like to refer to anyone local because he's not been happy with their work. great.

well this new dentist does work under general at children's hospital and i do feel more comfortable with this option. but money is a huge issue. he says it will be at least a thousand or 2...or more, who knows? they won't know til they get in there and look. which right now isn't going to happen without drugs.

well, needless to say i'm pretty freaked and have been quite unable to focus on much of anything else. i'm going to be a basketcase until this is all over.

looking into getting tyr books and videos on going to the dentist and toys to play dentist...going to work on brushing him after every meal (was only doing it at night before) to get him more used to having his mouth handled...and going to play lots of pretend dentist. start getting him less fearful. and then hopefully we can attempt another visit to this new dentist and get that second opinion that we've not gotten yet.

i keep hoping there's something that can be done to stave off worse damage while we buy some time for him to mature a little more and hopefully go into a new, less fearful phase.

until then, i'm going to be a ball of nerves...potty training is on hold for now. i can only handle one thing at a time.