2 Yr Old Having 4 Top Teeth Pulled. Anyone Been Through This? I Need Advice!!

Updated on October 22, 2010
N.E. asks from Marion, OH
14 answers

My almost 2 year old son ( he will be 2 next month) has experienced many falls that have caused his 4 top teeth to chip away and discolor. They have also been causing him pain & discomfort.

There is really nothing left of his teeth and we will be going in for a dental appointment that I am almost positive will result in him having his 4 top teeth removed, which I am sure is probably best at this point.

My biggest concerns are about the pain that he will be in & how we will control it.

Has anybody been through this with a child so young?
What kind of pain medication will they send home with him, if any at all?
How long will he be in pain?
How long will it take for him to recover?
Is the pain unbearable, or is it managable?

Thanks to anybody who might be able to offer some advice from experiences of their own. It is greatly appreciated :)

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So What Happened?

We went to the dentist this morning and my son now has an appointment for March 29th to have his 4 top teeth pulled. The doctor reassured me that this would be a quick process and recovery would also be quick.

It is now the day after the procedure and I must say, It went so much better than I expected! The whole procedure took less than 15 minutes and he was fine afterwards. I decided to go with the local anesthetic instead of putting him through the whole surgery process, this way his recovery and the procedure time would be a lot faster, and I am so glad that I did. He was a trooper and has handled the whole thing very well. The first night was even a breeze. He slept through with no interruptions (I did give him Motrin at bedtime)
Thank you to everyone who shared their stories and put me at ease. I appreciate it!

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E.W.

answers from Cleveland on

I think the hardest part is being the parent watching. My son had to be put asleep for a filling at 3. It was hard for me to watch him frightened as they put him to sleep and afterward he was groggy and crabby. He clinged to me which was nice since I was still feeling bad after the first process. He is 11 and doesn't even remember it at all.

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L.M.

answers from Columbus on

BOTH MY DAUGHTERS HAD THIS DONE> my oldest is now 9 yrs old and my youngest is now 4 yrs old.
my lil one had hers done in columbus when she was 2. they said that it wouldnt be too much pain.. they knocked her out.. and she didnt remember a thing. she was in discomfort,after the surgery, not too much pain.
she was more sleepy and groggy than anything.
the after care is not too hard, atleast want for us, because we had already been thru this once before.... rinsing the mouth out was the pain in the butt, and not allowing any drinking from straws and being careful too!
2 yr old are anything BUT careful!

talk to the dentist and see what they recommend for the pain afterwards, we used motrin. and tylenol.
with a few days my lil one was up and bouncing around like nothing ever even happened, and within a week she was back to her super human self. lol.

I was scared too to have it done, and i thought that i did something wrong, and the dentist was so nice and explained all the info to me and that this happens all that time, more than you would think it does, and thankfully for them there ... or I would have lost my mind!

the only thing about getting the top 4 pulled is that it tends to stunt the growth in the top 4 afterwards, my 9 yr old daughter didnt get her tops till she was almost 9, so make sure to keep up with the dentist and get xrays to check on the growth and position of the new incoming teeth.

we now go to the dentist in hebron, and there is a pedi dentist there Dr Hines, and she is AWESOME with kids.

any other questions plz ask me, I will try to help/.
hope that all goes well.

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R.P.

answers from Youngstown on

I wasn't thinking to share this first thought... My son who is 7 just had a tooth pulled yesterday... it had had a cavity in it and was filled and now broke... I let him go to the chair by himself... after reading posts by others here, I remembered this and it helps a lot!!! With the pain of watching your child have to go through all this, that is. I know yours is only 2 so you probably need to be there with him.

I taught all our children to not FEAR the dentist! That is one thing I am very proud of in my parenting role. I wish my parents would have done the same. I don't really fear going, just don't want to and sometimes cancel my appointments for getting a filling changed - not just a clean and check.

back to what I came here to share with you. IF the dentist pulls those teeth, he will probably use the topical numbing then novocaine then will recommend tylenol... the worst part is having the numbness go away. Try to feed your child a meal before he goes - as you know you have a hard time eating while numb! I didn't give our son tylenol and he didn't complain at ALL and the tooth pulled was a molar... much bigger tooth to have pulled. Last time he had the same tooth on the opposite side of his mouth pulled (same reason) and we gave him one dose of tylenol. He didn't seem to have any pain then, either.

Our daughter had her two bottom teeth in the front pulled... it was almost time for them to come out on their own but the roots weren't dissolving like they should so the dentist had to pull them out. We didn't give her tylenol and it didn't seem to bother her enough that we SHOULD give her tylenol.

You just keep a very positive attitude and be encouraging and if he complains at all just reassure him that it won't be long before the pain (if he has any) goes away!

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M.C.

answers from Elkhart on

I agree that he probably won't have much pain. But Tea Tree oil is great for reducing or eliminating pain and will also help the healing process. Get the purest form available at your health food store. It should have a T number and a C number. The higher the T# and the lower the C#, the more pure it is. I use T36C5 and I know you can get as pure as T40C3. Now mind you, he may not like the taste but it definitely works! I just put a bit on my finger and then rub it on their gums. It works wonders for teething babies too - OraGel doesn't work for more than a few minutes. Tea Tree oil has the crankiest teether down playing happily in only a few minutes and lasts for hours. My youngest son and my granddaughters actually started liking the taste too since they knew it helped the paain!

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B.F.

answers from Richland on

My son is know 10 but had his top 2 teeth pulled at the age of 2. They gave him some medication so he would not remmeber the precedure. I did not want him to be afraid of the dentist. We as a little crabby after it was done but was totally fine the next day. He did not have front teeth for about 5 years then it was weird to see him with teeth cuz he was very cute without them too. Good luck it sound a lot worst than it is. Kids bounce back so fast.

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D.P.

answers from Pittsburgh on

N.,
My son had to have O. of his top front teeth pulled when he was 5 for similar reasons (fall caused damage to the tooth/slight discoloration, but he developed an abscess on his gum above the tooth). They said if left alone, the infection could cause lasting damage to the developing permanent tooth. My son probably injured it years earlier, it just took awhile for the nerve to die.
It was not loose, and according to my husband who took him for the extraction, there was some real pulling going on. The worst part for my son was the novocaine shot. I think we gave him Tylenol that night but he didn't experience a great deal of pain afterwards. His was only the O. tooth and he was older than your son, I know. He was a real trooper and was well aware of what was happening.
Good luck to you and your little guy. Kids are pretty resilient (more so than me--I would have been out cold on the floor if I had taken him to the appointment!).

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K.T.

answers from Columbus on

Oh, I can relate! My daughter fell when she was 15 months old and broke a front tooth which ended up having to be pulled when she was 18 months old because of an abcess. She is now 3-1/2 years old and I took her for a routine check up a few weeks ago and they discovered that the other front tooth was abcessed and we scheduled an appointment to have it pulled (with sedation) on March 23rd. This past Sunday she fell again and knocked that same front tooth loose and I took her to the dentist Monday and they went ahead and pulled it. Because this appointment was kind of on an emergency basis, they did not sedate her ... just a topical numbing gel followed by a shot of novacaine before they pulled it. Both times she was absolutely amazing during and after the procedure! They did not prescribe any pain medication but Monday afternoon and at bedtime I gave her ibuprofen *just in case* and then yesterday morning she was a little bit crabby so I gave it to her again. I'm offering her all the foods she ate before and she's accepted almost everything. As the pediatric dentist said to me the first time around, if it was you or me we would be laying around on the couch whining and complaining ... but the kids just seem to bounce right back.

I hope your little guy does well ... I really think it's harder on us than it is on them!

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A.B.

answers from Phoenix on

My dtr had the top front 2 teeth taken out so she went toothless for about 1 year before her adult teeth came in. She was not in pain, at least she didn't complain about it. Her dentist only recommended no sucking on a straw for a few hours because that caused more bleeding. She seems ok the next day, had no excessive bleeding. Of ourse your son is younger and may show discomfort that could probably be taken care of with some tylenol or motrin. good luck to you and your little one.

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M.P.

answers from Cleveland on

I honestly do not think that he will be in any more pain than he has been with the damage that has been done. In some ways it may be a relief. Two of my sons were a little older (5) when one knocked out a front tooth and one completly broke his front tooth in half.They were very painful injuries and the remedy relieved that. I think the Dentist will probably recommend children's Tylonal for pain but children rebound from these kinds of problems much faster than adults do. Lots of TLC and pain medicaion work miracles.

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T.C.

answers from Steubenville on

hi..both my boys had to have teeth removed at the age of two. They were bottle babies. :( anyhow, i first son only had 1 tooth removed, and my 2nd child had 2. ( they are 16 and 18 now) so not sure which teeth they were. Had them both put under with general anastetics, no problems. I thought that giving them alil baby valium and holding them down through this process would be way more tramadic, same opinion today. i don't recall them coming home with any pain meds besides baby tylonel. They were fine afterwards, compare it to teething really. So yer lil boy will be fine. lots of jello and pudding and mashed potatos...oooh and ice cream. :) remember, these are his baby teeth, and they are supposed to come out anyhow. Its nothing like when us adults get our wisdom teeth out. you'll both be fine. :)

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K.S.

answers from Washington DC on

My 3 year old son has to have his top 4 pulled in a few days. My concern is not so much for the dental procedure itself but what he will feel like having to go through until 7 or 9 without any of those teeth. Will he be made fun of at school when he goes. Is there anything that can be done on a temporary basis to give him teeth there until the others come in?

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K.V.

answers from Columbus on

I just had to take my son to the Children's Hospital dental surgery center. We had to take him there because the pediatric dentist could not get an xray to determine just how bad his cavities were. Look for a good peditric dentist and only deal with a pediatric dentist. I wouldn't make an assuptions as my nephew had a really bad case of bottle mouth before the age of two. They did not pull the teeth because they are needed to guide the adult teeth into the right location and maintain the spacing in the mouth. They ended up capping all of his teeth. Either way you may be looking at a big expense. Good Luck.

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J.C.

answers from Fort Wayne on

My daughter, who at the time had just turned 6, had to get 2 teeth pulled because her permanents were growing behind and the roots on her babies weren't dissolving. I am compelled to tell you what happened so it doesn't happen to you!! The dentist numbed her and when she started yanking, my daughter was screaming because it hurt. She has always been great about going to the dentist too. I asked the dentist if she was SURE she was numb and she said yes, so I didn't know what to do. My daughter was BEGGING me to not let them do it because she said it hurt really bad. I decided to let them strictly because I knew since she was already numbed, I would never get her to go back to get it done in the future after her feeling what she'd already felt from it. So, and this is awful just reliving it. The dentist told me to straddle her, then another hygienist held her head down and that dentist pulled and yanked until they came out. The whole time my daughter was screaming, and I felt like I could've passed out. The hygienist was holding her so tight that afterwards, my daughter told me she was having trouble breathing!!! It was AWFUL. Now, I had never had any experience with getting teeth pulled, never had a cavity until I was 30, so I had no experience with dental work to compare this experience with. After talking to a few friends and family, they told me to get away from that dentist because their dentists would've NEVER put a child through that. It took a while to get past the guilt, but when I called and moved them to a pediatric dentist, I asked him how he would've handled that and he said that he would never have done that to her, and they would've administered nitris oxide to her. So, I literally pulled all four of our files away from the old dentist, now known as the "evil dentist" and my kids go to the pediatric one.

So, my advice to you is to find out if the office who does is uses nitris, don't know if I'm spelling it right....and if they don't, do NOT let them do it. It will traumatize him. If they don't, find a new dentist, preferrably a pediatric one. I still can't believe what my daughter had to go through. I had to explain to her that mommy shouldn't have let her go through that, and that she would never have to go through that again. She's had one appt with the new dentist and was totally fine after I had reassured her. I just can't believe what they put her through! With the nitris, the child doesn't even remember it, so it's definitely the way to go

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E.B.

answers from Indianapolis on

My 18 month old is getting ready to have his four top teeth pulled tomorrow. He fell and chipped one and within a week or two all four were breaking and causing him a lot of pain, and then one abscessed.
I am so upset over it all!
How did your son handle it?

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