My five year old son had a bit of a trike accident and that led to some damage to her front teeth. Now one of them is discolored. Is there any way that I can get his teeth back to its original color, such as with a special diet? I’d even be willing to pay for teeth whitening.
Abby
Dear Abby,
There really isn’t any way to change the color of his teeth by diet. His teeth are also too small to do anything else. However, the discoloration from tooth trauma would not respond to teeth whitening even if he was an adult. This discoloration is because the tooth is dying. As an adult, he would need a root canal treatment and possibly a dental crown.
Because of his age, I would not stress over this. His tooth will fall out on his own soon enough and make way for the adult tooth that will be coming in with a nice healthy color. Don’t try to get his tooth to come out sooner, you want the root of the adult tooth to have plenty of time to develop and pushing up against that baby tooth is one of the ways it does that.
You may want to take your son in to see his pediatric dentist in order to make sure there isn’t any underlying damage to the adult tooth. If he doesn’t have one yet, I would get him one or take him to see a general dentist who also treats children. In the case of the latter, you’ll want to make sure it is one who is good with children. One way to know that is when they recommend you first bring your child in for a check-up. If it is when they’re a toddler, then great. If it’s not until they are eight years old or more, than I would look for someone else. That is a sign that they “put up” with children but don’t enjoy them.
This blog is brought to you by Portage Dentist Dr. Susan Dennis.