Question:
Does anyone have any experience with their child having a pulpotomy (baby
tooth root canal)? My 4 yo recently injured one of her front teeth in a
fall. The tooth was knocked out of place, but it has since moved more or
less back into place. The day it happened, we took her to the dentist, and
he did an x-ray. Apparently no damage to the permanent tooth, but he said
that if the tooth turns gray (indicating nerve damage) then we would likely
need to consider a root canal. This happened about 3 weeks ago, and now
the tooth is showing signs of turning gray. I want to know if anyone on the
NG has been thru this with their own child. How is the procedure done? How
traumatic was it for the child? What is the cost issue? Is it really
necessary? etc. BTW, we have no dental insurance and will have to pay for
it ourselves. I'm much less concerned with the cost than how much it will
bother my daughter....and I"m wondering if this sort of thing requires
general anethesia?
Comments anyone???
Answer:
My middle child did the same thing to one of his front teeth when he was
two. The dentist did not suggest a root canal. The tooth took some time
to turn grey, but we just left it in place, and it just fell out a month
or two ago (he is 7). He did get an infection at one point several months
ago, but it was taken care of with antibiotics, and had it not been, we
would have just let her pull the tooth, since he was so close to getting
his adult one.
My son was born with malformed baby molars that decayed very quickly.
However, for you, the good news is that your child will be losing her front
teeth in the next 6-12 months. The reasons why the dentist is telling you
to do a baby root canal are valid, and the general guideline is to get it
fixed if it is going to remain in her head longer than 6 months. Your xrays
should reveal how close to the surface the primary tooth is.
As far as the procedure itself, its really not any bigger of a deal than
getting a cavity filled. My son had it done around 6 years of age. They
gave him liquid valium (expensive!!! $85), novacaine and laughing gas. He
had two root canals done at the same time and his teeth capped with a silver
crowns (about $200 per tooth). He was groggy when I got him home. He
napped for a while...ate jello, ice cream and eggs for a couple of days -
but certainly wasn't any worse off for it.
We have an excellent pedia-dentist who is great with kids. I think that is
probably the most important factor to consider. My son had no fear of the
dentist and had been treated very nicely.
I have had experience with this with my son(now 7.5 yrs old, but he had the
pulpotomy at 6 yrs old). The procedure itself didn't seem too
traumatizing...the worst was getting the freezing in a needle of course.
Luckily we had a quick and experienced dentist!!! We too have no insurance
and I believe it cost us approx $100(if I remember correctly!). The
procedure only took about 1/2 hour..that included time for freezing to take
effect..etc.
I can't say if it was worth while or not, because I did not try the
alternative of leaving the tooth alone, but the procedure was not extremely
expensive, and was fairly quick.
