Aspies For Freedom

I've put this in the parents' forum, but really it's addressed to everyone.

My son still has his milk teeth with no sign of adult teeth coming in anytime soon.

He has been at the dentist twice in the past couple of weeks.  The first time the dentist put a filling in a tooth which was filled before, but the filling had fallen out.  The dentist said that there was probably a risk of an abcess at the root of that tooth, but it was best to try and keep the tooth for as long as possible to guide in the adult tooth when the time comes.  My parents noticed about a month ago when my son was with them that his face was swollen at that side of his mouth, but my son didn't complain about any pain.

A couple of months ago I noticed a swelling in the gum at the front of my son's mouth, above his upper incisors.  I took this to be a tooth coming in, but the dentist said it was an abcess, which had probably been there for a while and was going up and down, as it filled and drained.  My son hasn't complained about that either.

Last week we were back at the dentist as an emergency as my son was crying with toothache.  It wasn't the incisor with the abcess, but the one on the other side, which seemed to have nothing wrong with it.  The dentist reckons he's grinding his teeth and filed his lower teeth slightly to reduce the pressure on the upper ones.

That night my son's upper lip got extremely swollen, so we went to the doctor who could only guess that the swelling was caused by trauma as a result of a visit to the dentist. Swelling has mostly disappeared.

Today, my son got a slight cut to his upper lip, and I noticed what seems to another, massive, abcess at the tooth which last week had nothing wrong with it.  

So, it seems that my son has three abcesses in his mouth, which don't seem to cause him any pain!  I've never had an abcess, all I know about them is that they apparently are excruciatingly painful!!

Does anyone have any experience of this, or anything like this?  I have noticed that my son seems to make a big fuss over more minor injuries, and be oblivious to more major injuries.

Sorry such a long post...

My daughter is very sensitive to pain, so sensitive that we have a hard time telling how severe things really are.  So, count my thoughts out on this one...

On the other hand...my hubby, he has a very hard time when ill, but has a constant back pain that I never ever hear about.

Maybe you will get some better responses than mine.    

He has been having problems with his eyes.  At the end of last year he had to get a general anasthetic to remove ingrowing lashes from his right eye, which has been fine since then until the early hours of this morning, when he woke up in screaming agony with it.  He's just finished a course of antibiotic eyedrops for his left eye, which was causing his great pain due to an infection.

I wonder whether the pain in his eyes has masked the pain from his teeth.  I guess it's back to the dentist again tomorrow to see what he recommends.  The dentist is very good with him and I've told the dentist that he's waiting to be assessed by the Autism Team and that his pain perception is unusual, so he's aware of the problems.

And back to the optician and the children's hospital for the right eye!

Yeeeouch!  

Hope you get your own toothache sorted out as soon as, Lestat!  Thanks for your replies!

I see you're doing mornings this happy day!

Managed to look in son's mouth - two massive abcesses so now waiting for 9am to phone dentist...  Good luck with yours - if you can still stand after the cheap voddy and the rest!

I don't much about this - could you tell me more about what you mean?

Dental appointment has been made for 4pm, it's just after 9am right now.

Yeah I have tactile hyposensitivity. It does effect how I feel pain. It is a source of a lot of embarassment. I have left a thread soemwhere on here about tactile hyposensitivity. I will try to find it.

Thanks, Hyke.

That makes sense.  My son is 6 and his baby teeth were quite late coming in so the dentist reckoned a while back that his adult teeth probably wouldn't come in until he was 7 or older.  Hopefully, he does have the same issue as your daughter, but they do look pretty alarming.  It's very difficult to get my son to look in his mouth, but because these abcesses are right at the front under his top lip, I can see them when he speaks or smiles.

Although he doesn't seem to be in pain, he's had a couple of really major tantrums over the past day or two, which is out of character - even for him! - and I wondered if that was maybe his way of expressing the pain.

I'm also really worried about the risk of infection and his mouth becoming a real mess.

Well, we've been to the dentist now.  He'd never seen anything like it before!

Basically, it seems that he has some kind of cysts, which are unusual anyway, and it's made worse by the fact that his adult teeth are pressing down on them.  And he has got an infection as well.

So the teeth are to come out on Friday and meantime he's on antibiotics for the infection.

Thanks for all the advice folks, and Lestat, I hope your toothache is better now!

For me, part of it as well was the fact that the tiny little scratch was such a BIG issue that I had a hard time telling when she was accurately reporting.  For me, when she was a baby I used to think about when she could eventually tell me what hurt and/or what was wrong, then it turns out that her reporting is not always what it seems.  Relief, out the window!  I have to try and trust my instincts as much as what she is telling me.  It can be hard.

Ah, well.  It's Friday now, the dental appointment has come and gone and my son still has his teeth!

It wasn't possible for the dentist to give him the injections he needed because my son was so distressed.  He couldn't keep still, kept moving his head and trying to grab the dentist's hand, so it was decided there was too much risk of him being seriously injured.

We've just to monitor the abscesses and go back if they get worse and the dentist will organise for him to go for treatment elsewhere where he can be sedated.

Yee ouch!  Nasty one, but no easy solution to that kind of problem.  Have you tried asking for recommendations for a dentist who's really good with people who're terrified?  Some dentists use hypnotism instead of gas or injections - do you think that would be helpful at all?

I'm really impressed with our dentist, because he's taking things as slowly as he can, not just in dealing with this current problem, but because he doesn't want my son to have a negative experience which will affect him in the future.

Today, he decided pretty quickly that it wasn't going to work, so although it was pretty traumatic at the time, it wasn't long drawn out.

I know my son "feels' pain - but he deson;t seem to give much of an indication of rpain -he acts like the light touch of a brush on his scalp hurts more than crashing full on into a tree - (he doesn't say ouch for the tree) I know he feels it though.  (He goes to a special dentist because his gag reflex is so strong - the dentist needs to be very clever - so a pediatric dentist is what we use)
I feel really bad for anyone -especially a child - with tooth cavities, problems or mouth pain - abcesses, cysts - I will pray that your doctor is inspired and creative and efficient and successful in remedying the situation quickly and with the least pain to your child...

Agreed,

Not daft at all. Especially when you want to explain fears and worries and if you need real reassurement. Any change you can see one soon?