# What would you do (kid dental situation) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 27, 2008, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-kid-dental-situation/461484 "2008-08-27T23:18:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-kid-dental-situation/461484/21 "2008-11-03T13:58:43Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > . > > **Eureka** , someone _did_ suggest seeing a pediatric dentist, and ultimately that’s what we did. Yeah, now that I reread the thread, it did come up a couple of times. Not sure why I skipped those posts last night. . . I remembered the stuff about financial concerns to an appropriate degree. And I can certainly see why you might not choose to look for a new dentist for yourself (given your history) even while annoyed with the dentist for her contributions to this crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-kid-dental-situation/461484/22 "2008-11-03T17:30:41Z")
I’m really not alone! I’ve been trying to get Bella in for a broken tooth since March. First the insurance sent us to a dentist who wasn’t even pediatric. That dentist sent us to a pediatric dentist after pretending to try to clean her teeth. The pediatric dentist gave her a liquid to drink to calm her down; I forget the drug…but she refused, then became hysterical because too many people were crowding in on her. The pediatric dentist referred us to a specialist for “special needs kids”. We’ll be seeing him at the end of November. What started out as a simple filling and cap has now turned into an extraction. I just hope having a tooth pulled at three won’t make her future teeth come in all wonky. If my insurance KNOWS I have a child with special needs, why did they send me to a regular adult dentist (note I say she’s THREE?) instead of straight to the dentist who actually handles children like her on a daily basis? ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-kid-dental-situation/461484/23 "2008-11-03T19:50:05Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > I’m really not alone! > > I’ve been trying to get Bella in for a broken tooth since March. First the insurance sent us to a dentist who wasn’t even pediatric. That dentist sent us to a pediatric dentist after pretending to try to clean her teeth. The pediatric dentist gave her a liquid to drink to calm her down; I forget the drug…but she refused, then became hysterical because too many people were crowding in on her. The pediatric dentist referred us to a specialist for “special needs kids”. We’ll be seeing him at the end of November. What started out as a simple filling and cap has now turned into an extraction. I just hope having a tooth pulled at three won’t make her future teeth come in all wonky. > > If my insurance KNOWS I have a child with special needs, why did they send me to a regular adult dentist (note I say she’s THREE?) instead of straight to the dentist who actually handles children like her on a daily basis? Poor baby! (and poor you!!!). I feel your frustration!! Yoiks. At least my Dweezil is old enough to be reasoned with… sometimes. The main concern with a baby tooth pulled that early is that the child may need to have a space maintainer put in to keep the neighboring teeth from migrating and there not being room for the adult tooth. A friend’s son had such a thing (basically a band around the tooth behind it, and an open wire loop to hold the space open). Moon Unit also had to have that done on one of her teeth - the dentist ignored the hygienist’s report of seeing decay, the tooth decayed and abscessed, and had to be pulled. Needless to say, we don’t see _that_ dentist any more (and in fact the hygienist is the one who steered us to the current dentist). Moon Unit had 2-3 other baby teeth pulled later on - hers were evidently composed of a mixture of swiss cheese and cheap sidewalk chalk - but didn’t need the spacers, as X-rays showed the adult teeth relatively well formed and not too far from erupting anyway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-kid-dental-situation/461484.md?page=1)