My nefew is 1.5 yrs old and his upper teeth are eroding... his gums are swollen and bleeding

What's the best solution to this?
They went to the dentist and he said that dental surgery is necessary to take out all the upper teeth, but the parents are not sure if they want to do it because the baby will be under full sleep and that's not good for him, plus the surgery costs thousands of dollars

Can you please share your stories?
It will all be passed to my sister and her husband and taken to heart.

THANK YOU

what is the cause of the erosion? thats so sad

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

how horrible! this is becoming so common, i've heard of it a lot lately.

why are his teeth so bad? i would cut all sugar from his diet, and make veggies his chief snack, and give his body time to heal. he's so young. this is so horrible and should not really happen.

my baby is 14 months, and has great white teeth (a lot) and we never brush them! i've done it once or twice for fun, but there is no reason to at this stage.

peace-

we don't really know the cause but there may be a few that would apply:

-drinking breast milk before bed errods the teeth
-lots of turmoil going on in the household causes acidity and teeth to erode (the parents were about to get a divorce and lots of other stuff too)
-the mother of this baby has hep c (not sure if the baby is affected by it though)
-not enough calcium?

baby eats simple vegan diet, not counting a few exceptional incidents where he ate something non-vegan (very small amount)

all the dentists they've been to said the only thing to do at this point is to take out the upper teeth (4) with a general anesthetic... which is something we really don't want to do to this precious baby
so we're trying to find a dentist who would do it with a local anesthetic and we need some advice/stories

breastmilk can't cause this. my guy nursed to sleep for all his bedtimes for a very long time. he still drinks breastmilk before bed. in cultures where babies cosleep, they stay on the nipple all night. (the chief reason co-sleeping didn't appeal to me!) and these cultures still have teeth.

this is very strange. all the mom's i've heard of who get this surgery have done the general anesthesia, but they didn't think twice about it.

peace-

-the mother of this baby has hep c (not sure if the baby is affected by it though)

was the mother also on huge amounts of antibiotics by anychance?

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

no she's not taking any medicine whatsoever and has a pretty good diet
it's from all the nerves that she got sick

i meant when she was pregnant

hep c is viral ..you dont get hep c from nerves ... not sure if thats what you meant by *she got sick*

im wondering if there was anything she was on (meds, antibiotics, etc) while pregnant that could have affected the babys health , causing poor tooth formation now, from before it was born

also you said baby eats simple vegan diet, not counting a few exceptional incidents where he ate something non-vegan (very small amount)

what is an example of the kids daily intake?

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2007 10:45PM by Jgunn.

no she didn't take anything
their whole family doesn't take any pills/medications/antibiotics for 15 years now

and i don't know the details of his daily diet but i do know that everything he eats is homemade/godmade so the only cooked stuff he would eat would be something like a cooked apple with water or potato or broccoli or squash.. everything else is pretty much raw.. apples, bananas, pears, plums,watermelon as far as i know it's something like that

he also has an unknown "alergic" reaction which the alergist said is not an alergic reaction at all but it definitely looks like it, to fish and maybe other things that we're not sure of, it's kind of like a redish skin thing... he even used to have eczema when he was a few months old and it went away a couple months ago through hard work on the side of the parents (natural stuff)

he also used to have and still kind of does, elimination problems.. it used to take him a few days to eliminate but we noticed that when he goes out on the sun he feels a lot better, even his "alergy" thing goes away better, and prunes helped him too

he also had jaundice when he was just born
this baby has been through a lot and so has his mother

any advice/stories welcome please

What about vitamin D? The only real way that I know of that the body can get vitamin D besides animal foods is exposure to the sun. Vitamin D helps in the absorbtion of calcium. Tell them to ask there doctor about this. Take a look at this site and tell me if anything sounds like familiar symptoms.

[dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov]



KelBel

i dont know what to think... it sounds like a puzzle with peices missing ..

he had jaundice when he was born so was he on any antibiotics? at the hospital? or after? i know antibiotics are nortorious for destroying teeth .. thats really the only thing i can think of. you say none of them were on anything for 15 years but it doesnt makesense that something like this would be happening for no reason .. be it diet or past exposure to something etc etc

i would only suggest that perhaps they go seem some naturapaths or something like that for alternative ideas before yanking his face apart

i had surgery on my teeth wheni was like 5 or 6 ..they took out 6 teeth out of my mouth because my jaw was too small .. and then again another 6 adult teeth later on for the same reason

it was really traumatic for me and i still dont see why it was done as now back there in my mouth where there should be 4 or 5 molars on each side .. theres 2 and TONS of room back there from what i can tell .. i also had amalgam fillings put in for no reason into the remain molars .. there were no cavities .. the dentest said it was done to prevent them as every other kid gets cavities there

omg lol

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

i know it is wierd
no he didn't take anything either

yesterday they went to the alergist again and this time she actually did a test on him and it turns out he is allergic to fish, dairy and eggs! something apprantely his mom has been giving him recently but just a few times and in very small quantities, that explains the skin stuff but not the teeth problems

sorry to hear what happened to you with your teeth
i guess most parents get so scared they kind of panic and rush to do what the doctor ordered... we don't want to do this to our precious one though

[www.foodscout.org]

this is a link to nutrients for the teeth; if this boy's teeth are rotting out he probably isn't getting enough of the important nutrients for growth and stability. Iron, calcium, magnesium...
I am all for alternative diets and lifestyles, but the fact is that our cells need certain amounts of certain vitamins and minerals and other nutrients for growth, stability, and production and I wish people would understand this and act accordingly.

So, 4 yrs later, how is your nephew? I hope he is a happy healthy boy!