What to do with teeth?

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Kaitlyn here with her first loose tooth but the new one is coming up right behind it
Reagan here with his 3rd tooth gone and now 2 new loose ones

Today we spent the morning at Children's with Reagan and Kaitlyn. We had some concerns with Reagan's teeth especially since the top teeth a month ago were not showing signs of movement.

So we finally met with the Dental Cleft team and they took x-rays.... well glad we did. Not the news i was hoping to hear, but deep in the back knew it was a possibility.

We looked at Reagan's x-rays and well there is so little room in his mouth it explains the puzzle of teeth in his x-rays. We did discover that one of his top teeth is just starting to get loose and so they figure once out the others in months we will need to meet with the Dental surgeon.

We had worried about having to remove his top two front teeth, but don't think we will - he does not need a spacer to stretch the mouth, but he has a tooth coming in upside down !!!! which will need to be removed - saw it and was totally surprised.

We also found that because of his size and all they do need to do the bone graph we had been hoping not to have to do. So this summer we'll have to deal with this and know esp. the graphing part is not fun, they take bone from his hip area and insert it in his upper gum line to fill in the fisher crack so that it can hold his teeth better. Poor guy - but we have talked through it and he understands it is necessary for him.

While i was there thought i would inquire about Kaitlyn since her teeth are doing the same as Reagan's..... yep, her mouth is pretty much as big as it gets and her new teeth are healthier than the baby ones that had little enamel and are coming up behind since there is no room. So she will also require braces... Two kids for sure now - better get saving :-)

So Reagan had a year off with surgeries and it looks like this year two are in order, but after this he moves to braces for a few years and then no other surgeries until he is 15-16 when they do the jaw surgery. God knows, but this mommy hates having to put her kids through this stuff. But after 11 surgeries for this family it really is not anything new :-)

Lavonne 12-21-09