Closely-Spaced Siblings

I'm so glad I came on here today! I personally had this as a kid!!! Here's what happened. I had two baby teeth in my one front tooth spot. One on top of the other and then my perm. front tooth on top of that. So instead of the normal 2 teeth in a vertical row I had 3. I was 9yrs though when I went for the surgery. (they only found it after my other front tooth fell out and perm tooth grew in but my double baby tooth side didn't so they took x-rays to figure out why it wasn't falling out yet being so old.) Luckily for them I was already at the age that the teeth beside my front ones were loose and ready to fall out. They ended up putting me under full anestesia sp? and pulled the side tooth and both baby teeth and stitching me back up. I went into the hospital at 6am and went home sometime in the afternoon with instructions for soft foods and absolutely no sports, jumping around, horsing around etc. That part was the hardest since jump rope was my favorite recess activity. A couple weeks later the stitches dissolved. The dentist wanted to put a spacer in to hold the space open until my perm. tooth made it's way down but my parents couldn't afford it. He also planned to go in around 13yrs old to put something around the tooth to help pull it down into place while having braces...My perm. tooth finally came down on it's own (but very high up where it cut through my gums) in 10th grade! My parents finally 2 yrs later after much begging on my part got me braces to bring the tooth down from my upper gum and into line. Course the dentist's original plan should have been followed but hey as parents we do our best to afford what we can!

If they pull his front teeth to get at the extra tooth, I wouldn't really worry about it too much. I wasn't even aware or self-concious about my teeth until my senior year in highschool when I wanted to start dating and overheard someone call me the chick with the ugly teeth. Surgery is scary yes but I think more for the parents than the kid. I just remember thinking it was cool to get ice cream and jello and baby food for a couple weeks and miss school. hehe.

I'm sure liam will be fine after all is said and done. just make sure if you can that you stay on top of it now while he's young and he jaw is still pliable. Having braces after your jaw has hardened to bone is un-bearably painful, not to mention I had to wear my retainer for 10yrs afterwards and my teeth STILL moved. I feel like the braces (cost of) was half wasted since my teeth didn't stay straight after. Especially since retainers are only supposed to be worn for 1 yr all day/night and 1 year at night not 10! Do as much as you can as soon as you can. My dentist explained that my braces had to physically break the bone in my jaw as my teeth were moving and somehow magically re-create bone on the other side. Which is why kids get braces in jr. high not college. lol*

GL!!