Back to Peoria

Yesterday we drove to Peoria to see Vada's Cardiologist. Today we drive back to see her new dentist.  

I purposefully didn't brush V's teeth, not to gross you out but to show you that her teeth become packed with food. You can see this only on her left side. Her right side is all teeth and only a crumb of food.

Vada was scheduled to have oral surgery this Friday to have caps placed on all eight of her molars. However the surgery was to be local and with a local dentist and anesthesiology, which would be fine, even with a child who has Down syndrome but with her heart history her cardiologist prefers that it is done locally, not for us, but for him in Peoria, which is just fine with me. Truthfully, I was feeling a little uneasy with the dentist who was going to do the work this Friday but I figured that I was just being too picky. Then when V's cardiologist said he wanted her in Peoria, I took it as a sign that it was meant to be. So today, we head back to Peoria!

I am assuming that the ultimate goal to cap V's molars will remain the same, even with this new dentist.  

If you look at these pictures you can see that V's molars are discolored and misshaped (that dot that you see is a piece of food and not a cavity, sorry). Vada's teeth grew that way, this is how they came in, ridgid and almost yellow in the centers. 

People who have Down syndrome do have oral issues that range from missing teeth to the sizes of their mouths in general but that does not necessarily mean that V's issues are a direct reflection of her having Down syndrome. From what I have been told, is that this actually happened as her teeth were forming, in utero and I would much rather believe that it happened during my pregnancy than my lack of providing good oral care for her but truthfully, I do believe that I am at fault here, at least somewhat. Vada has been on oral medications since she began having seizures in August of 2010 and before she even had teeth to brush! But I never thought to rinse her gums off after each dosing that I gave to her three times a day even though the medications resembled a sugar infused pancake syrup, throw that in with the fact that she was on a toxic steroid for months, the whole forming of the teeth in utero (when I got sick practically everyday), and then that she does have Ds, well, lets just say it's hard to pinpoint what actually caused her oral issues but we are in the process of fixing them so that she may have healthy adult teeth and so that she can keep her beautiful smile shining!