What to Expect When Visiting a Children’s Dentist with Dental Pain

As a children's dentist, we recommend that you bring your child to our office twice a year so that we can clean their teeth to remove plaque and tartar. Every time that your child eats or drinks, there is a possibility of plaque building up on their teeth. While daily brushing and flossing will help to remove it, it is very difficult for children to remove everything at home. Even adults have problems with this, so it is more important than ever to bring your children in regularly while they are young. Even though we make this recommendation we are also keenly aware that many families are incredibly busy.

It can be difficult to find time for oral health in between a busy work schedule, school schedule, and children's activities. Unfortunately, if the busyness of life prevents you from bringing your child in regularly you may end up visiting our office because they are experiencing a toothache or incredible discomfort. This is something that we want to avoid because it's not in their best interest. However, if your child is in pain, we ask that you bring them to our office immediately so that we can help to stop it.

Identifying the Source of Discomfort

When you bring your child to our children's dentist office, our first objective will be to identify what is causing your child pain or discomfort. We will do so using:

1. X-rays
2. A physical exam

The X-rays will allow us to see inside of their tooth to determine if they have an infection in their dental pulp or roots. A physical examination will allow us to check for dental damage like cracks or chips along with soft spots. These signs of decay or damage will allow us determine what is causing their pain and then to create a treatment plan to address it right away. Unfortunately, in cases where a child has never been to the dentist or has not been to the dentist in a long time, there are often multiple issues going on simultaneously. For example, we may find teeth that have decay next to teeth that have such serious infections they require an extraction. This is far less common with children who visit the dentist regularly.

Developing a Treatment Plan

There are several possible treatments for decay or a dental infection. The severity of the problem will determine which treatment solution we recommend but some possibilities are:

• Removing the decay and placing a tooth-colored filling
• Completing a root canal
• Placing a dental crown
• Extracting the tooth

As a children's dentist, our goal is to treat your child's teeth in the least invasive manner possible. If we can solve the problem by placing dental fillings - we will. However, when there are extensive dental problems your child may need to have multiple procedures such as root canals and crowns, and even extractions. In this case, we may need to break up the treatment into several appointments or we may recommend that your child has everything done at once while under anesthesia in a surgical setting. This allows for your child to get the procedures they need faster.

Bring Your Child to a Children’s Dentist

Ultimately, we are on your side and want your child to remain as healthy as possible. By bringing them to our office twice a year, you can help us to do so.

Dental Checkups for Children  >  Dentist for Kids

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