Tooth abscess

[Ant22]

We tried getting the tongue tie lasered but it was very traumatic since his tie is very close to the muscle and the surgeon ended up just burning a massive scar into the base of his tongue and making my son petrified of dentists.

You said that the dentist burnt the base of your son's tongue, is that somewhere close to the salivary glands? Saliva plays a role in oral hygiene too so if the procedure affected his salivary glands it may play a role in the condition of your son's teeth. Here's some info I found:

The rôle of saliva in maintaining oral health and as an aid to diagnosis - PubMed

Saliva is a complex secretion. 93% by volume is secreted by the major salivary glands and the remaining 7% by the minor glands. 99% of saliva is water and the other 1% is composed of organic and inorganic molecules. While the quantity of saliva is important, so is its quality. The components of...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Saliva and Your Mouth: Function of Saliva in Oral Health

WebMD talks about what saliva is, the role saliva plays in your oral health, and the causes and treatment of too much or too little saliva.

www.webmd.com

We have a good diet (paleo for him) but the dentist is always banging on about us ‘obviously’ feeding our son excessive fruit or sugar foods even though we don’t. I’ve been to 3 dentists and they all accuse us of poor diet even though we don’t do fruit juice (except once a week as a treat he gets a fresh made juice from the markets) and I’ve never fed my son dried fruit and rarely packet foods.

I think dentists have a bit of a fixation on sugar. I used to have very weak teeth and every visit to the dentist resulted in drilling. I was always told off for eating too much sugar when in fact my sugar consumption wasn't excessive at all. And then my teeth issues disappeared completely when I stopped using fluoride toothpaste. That was back in 2012 and apart from a wisdom tooth removal I haven't needed a dentist since. I didn't change my diet until a few years later so sugar couldn't have been the main offender in my case.

Fluoride may not be the culprit in your case but given that fruit is preserved in sugar to create a jam I'm not sure it's correct that bacteria in our mouth thrives on it more than other foods. I'd say starchy foods and flour are worse but I'm not a dentist so it's just my personal take on it. But I am also someone who was told by dentists that all my teeth problems resulted from sugar, like there was nothing else that could hurt our teeth and that proved to be incorrect.

I also have a course of amoxicillin in the fridge that was prescribed ages ago but we never took. My son has never had antibiotics but when I look at him he is in so much discomfort and we are doing all the natural things we can to help him but he has been up since 3am sitting in the shower. He’s gone back to bed now but I think I will give him the course of antibiotics :(

I don't have much advice to give, but I just wanted to say that I can understand trying to avoid antibiotics, yet, I think that sometimes, that's the only way to deal quickly and effectively with some acute problems, such as an abscess that is causing so much pain and trouble.

Thanks everyone. We went to the dentist to get the tooth extracted but it was too inflamed so we went to emergency. By the time we got seen they wanted to put him on IV antibiotics so we are staying overnight since it’s already evening.

Antibiotics such as penicillin are actually natural substances too and I agree with Yas that sometimes antibiotics are the best, quickest and least harmful solution. I had tooth abscess once too and I was trying to heal it naturally to no avail. Antibiotics solved the issue quickly and it hasn't come back. As long as you remember to protect and restore the gut flora after during and after the course of antibiotics I think your little boy should be fine. I hope it all ends well for him

 

[Andromeda]

Oh boy! That poor little guy must have been in a lot of pain. I had my first tooth abscess recently and it was the most painful thing I can ever remember experiencing. It felt like a mule had kicked the side of my head and I couldn't even tell where the pain was coming from, everything hurt so bad. In my case, the infection was coming from an old cavity that had been filled several years before and the infection was inflaming the trigeminal nerve. It was a couple of days before I got a dental appointment where they redrilled and filled the cavity. Then, when it was still hurting later in the evening, they finally called in a prescription for an antibiotic. At that point, it was a Friday evening with nowhere but the emergency dentist open, but I was willing to go get it pulled out by whomever if it would help! Heck, I might have pulled it out myself. Fortunately, the antibiotic started working within a few hours, but it took 5 days for the pain to go away completely.

Moral of the story, that kind of pain is nothing to mess with. Nor is the risk of the infection spreading to the bone. You can rebuild gut flora, as has been said here, and maybe not every abscess will be that bad, but if there is strong pain and any other sign such as a black eye, I would never hesitate to take the antibiotic. Totally not worth the pain and risk.

 

[hiker]

Sorry to hear about your son @KTC. Hopefully things are getting better for him there at the hospital!

One thing that is worth pointing out, is the possibility that the tongue tie prevents the tongue from getting up against the palate. This can result in him sleeping with his mouth open, and breathing through his mouth. Breathing though one's mouth during the sleep can "dry" the mouth, membranes and teeth. If the saliva doesn't get to cover the teeth and flow around them in normal fashion, it can exacerbate caries greatly.

Also, breathing through your mouth in general, will negatively affect the airways and facial structure when the child is growing. Once the abscess business is well behind you, it would probably be good to look into this possibility. If the lasering of the tongue tie was not successful, and the movements of the tongue are still restricted, I am sure there are competent dentists/ surgeons out there who could do it properly, perhaps with "premedication", which would relax your son (if need be).

"Orthotropics" is a stellar youtube channel (upheld by dentists John and Mike Mew), which has essential information about the correct function of the tongue, the importance of breathing through your nose, etc.

Here is one informational video: