Back when I was a single mother, not making much money, I had to make sacrifices in order to keep a roof over my children’s heads and put food on the table and shoes on their feet…  This was a challenge, as anyone who has raised two children on your own for 5+ years knows, you need pretty much every penny you can get to meet the rent, electric, day care, groceries, etc.  When you are on a wage of $30k a year (back in the day), there isn’t much room for dentistry.  With that said, I am now able to afford dental work on my son.  Yes, he is old enough to deal with it on his own, get to his appointments himself, and pay for the work and the insurance, but it is my resonsibility as a mom to take care of his teeth and since I was not able to do it at the time that it was becoming a problem, I have to take care of it now, for him.  I feel terrible about it, I feel like I wasn’t a good mom to him and that I was neglectful.  But what can you do?  Make up for it now. 

My family history is "soft teeth", I was fortunate, and so were my brothers to not have the "soft teeth", but I do believe that my son has the "soft teeth" problem.  Hell, my mother lost all of her teeth by the time she was 20.  Well, Curtis is 20 now, at least he won’t lose all of his.  He needs some major work on his mouth.  He has a severly overcrowded mouth and he drinks 5+ cokes a day.  He has all of his wisdom teeth in and he has two additional teeth that are sitting up in his upper jaw, above his wisdome teeth.  He has to have a total of 10 teeth removed, 1 or 2 root canals, plus fillings in the remaining teeth, with exception of the two front teeth.  After that, he will be put in braces.  He will finally be able to smile and not have fangs sticking out.  He will be able to smile and not worry about people looking at his messed up teeth. 

The bottom line, before insurance covers the work, is $10k in dental work.  Fortunately, the extractions are covered 80% and the fillings will end up cheaper with the insurance.  So that will knock the price down considerably!! The braces will cost a lot of money but fortunately, they will work with us on a direct payment plan.

The last week of April, he had his first appointment, root canal on #5.  That one didn’t hurt him at all.  Last week, he had his first four teeth pulled, the canines (cuspids). #’s 6, 11, 22 & 27.  We weren’t sure if we should pull these or root canal them.  Since root canals cost so much and since his bicuspids are in good shape, we decided to have the cuspids removed. The bicuspids will be moved forward to take the place of the 4 cuspids.  They numbed him up with the maximum number of shots that he was allowed to have.  His mouth was good and numb, but he felt the teeth being pulled.  He was in terrible pain.  I felt really bad for him.  When he gets his wisdome teeth pulled, I will besure to take him somewhere, where they will knock him out. No one should have to feel their teeth being pulled.  He is doing much better now, his mouth feels good and he can already feel the tension leaving his mouth.  This Wednesday is a follow up and then we will schedule the rest of his appointments for each Wednesday until he gets his braces on.  I am thinking that the dental work will take most of the summer and he will finally be in braces by the fall.  Hopefully the braces will only take a couple of years and when he is done, he will have a boosted self-confidence.

My daughter had her braces put on last year, she got an expander placed in her mouth because of over crowding, which helped a lot.  She didn’t need to have any teeth pulled, and they were able to get the cuspids down so that when she smiled, she didn’t have the same dreaded fangs showing.  Seems to be a family trait, the cuspids are stick out so much and when you smile, they are more promenent than the incisors.  Hopefully she will be getting her braces off by the end of the summer, just in time for graduation photos.  (I can’t beleive she will be a senior next year).  GAH!!