At a recent appointment with Dr. Adams, I showed him a close-up picture I had taken of my "five-and-three-quarters" year old daughter's front teeth. Picture 2 adult teeth shoving in behind 4 baby teeth, only one of which was remotely loose (and my daughter had been proudly working that one for at lease 3 weeks). "Should I be concerned?" I recall asking Dr. Adams.
The following week, my daughter was comfortably ensconced in the dentist chair, a little nervous but also excited about the potential Tooth-Fairy loot to come. After it was all over, I asked her to tell me, in her words, why the dentist had to pull all those teeth ....
"Well, if only one baby tooth got pulled out, the two grown-up teeth would not have space to grow in and they would be crowded with the other baby teeth. So Dr. Adams said we should take out four baby teeth. When he put the "sleepy juice" in my mouth it felt like a little pinch. And it kind of felt like just a little pinch when he was pushing my teeth to get them loose to make them come out. Then they gave me a little box to put the teeth in. And then the Tooth-Fairy got the teeth out of the box and put the money into my tooth pillow. She brought me $4.00 which makes eighty nickels and that's a lot of money!"
From the "mom" observation side, not a tear was shown or a cry heard. Bottom line - Mom was more worried about the process than she was. Oh, and Dr. Adams, she wanted me to tell you, "I love you, Dr. Adams" so clearly the child is far from traumatized ;-).
Pros: There are plenty of dentists close to where we live near downtown Raleigh, but my entire extended family drives more than 20 minutes just to see Dr. Adams - he is good!
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