Ziyi And Her First Extracted Tooth

During Chinese New Year in Feb 2013, the clumsy girl fell flat on her face. She was running with her cousin Nathan and as usual, she was the one who tripped and fell. Seconds later she wailed and daddy immediately rushed over and carried her, checking her knees and hands. When I saw her knees were not bleeding, I knew it had to be her face as she did not stop crying. Opened up her lips and saw blood and it was swollen. We went into the house and cleaned her and dabbed it with an ice cube. Minutes later, I realised her front tooth was chipped. We were contemplating to bring her to the hospital or not since it was late night and this was her 5th time that she knocked on her lips! Lucky the first 4 times was nothing serious.

The chipped tooth looks so harmless, no one expected inflammation weeks later...

2 weeks later, this girl complaint of tooth pain, and I realised her upper lip was a lil bit swollen. With much persuasion, she obligingly followed me to the dentist and found out that it was her gum that was swollen due to the fall. She was given antibiotic and was told to return 2 weeks later.

On 13/3/2013, I brought her back to the dentist and they did a check on her gum, it was still red with signs of infection. Did an X-Ray, she was all good with instructions though I had to stay with her in the x-ray room as she tend to move. Although the x-ray did not suggest any signs of defects, but dentist suggested extraction of the chipped tooth. She said it might or might not affect her permanent tooth and it's better to sacrifice the milk tooth rather than the permanent one. The x-ray also showed that her permanent tooth is going to be a large one, larger than her other usual teeth! OMG!!

Doctor applied a gel on her gum for few minutes, she was lying there with her eyes shut. I was very proud of this girl as she was very well-behaved. Of course, she did not know what the next procedure going to be!
I saw the doctor holding the jab with a long fine needle, ready to inject some med into her gum.. I was trying to not look at it but I couldn't because I had to hold her and be near to her all the time. She was squirming a little and I could tell she felt the pain. Doctor said with the numbing gel she could still feel the pressure and a lil pain because her infected gum could be very sensitive. Poor baby...

Worst part was that the jab had to be done very slowly and she had to get up and gargle her mouth twice. So much of blood! In fact after gargling the first time, she obligingly lied down again and let the doctor continued, this time she couldn't hold it anymore and she burst! My heart broke when she cried and I even felt my tears welling up. The nurse had to hold her hands and I kept on comforting her. After gargling for the 2nd time, she refused to lie down again but with a lil bit of force by the nurse, she lied down, with her mouth wide open (because she was still wailing loud) the doctor extracted her tooth in less than 5secs! That was really quick. We kept on telling her it was done and she had to bite on to the gauze but she refused. I had to calm her down and held on to the gauze for her till we were out of the dentist room. I gave her the iPad to divert her attention and that worked! LOL... She was all okay after that, but I had to keep changing her gauze as she was not swallowing her saliva at all. After a few change, she did not need gauze anymore and all is good with her. I must say I am really very proud of her. She was very brave throughout the process. But I doubt she will want to go to the dentist again, hopefully many many months later she would have forgotten all about the pain she went through.

On a side note, the hubs was not agreeable to the extraction. He kept asking me to get 2nd opinion but hey..he was not doing anything except talking! I have a demanding work schedule and yet I had to bring Ziyi for checkup and follow-up checkup too! He could have brought her girl for a 2nd opinion if that's what he really wanted. What's with men???!!!

My sweetie pie waiting there with her over-sized bib :)

Getting ready for x-ray

My brave girl getting ready for jab

iPad did the job to calm her down

I took back the tooth and created a story of tooth fairy. I exchanged her tooth with a gold 50sen coin & a chocolate placed underneath her pillow. She was so happy to find her new treats! Kids are so innocent.