Help! One of my two year old's front tooth is a dark grayish color. How would i clean that off? And why is this occuring. I brush my son's teeth 2 times a day. I've slowly been weening him off his bottle at night. He now takes only water, not milk anymore. He has a dentist appointment next week, but im kind of embarrassed to go out in public with this. AHHHH please help me.
thanks,
Ld & Conner
My 3 year old nephew has the same problem! His dentist said he probably bumped his tooth. She said it would probably go away in time. She also said it would not affect his adult tooth.
That almost sounds like his tooth is dying. If that is the case you can't wash it off the entire tooth will change color and then fall out. I would not skip the dentist appointment at all and may even try to get in sooner.
Most likely he injured his tooth. It can take years for a root to die.
You're embarrassment??--I'd be anxious to find out if it needs to be addressed by a dentist.
My son hit his mouth and hurt his tooth and now has a gray tooth. If this is what happened to your child's, washing and brushing will not change it. It may become darker until almost black if he had an injury. My niece had a dark tooth and now my son has one. See if you can get him to the dentist sooner than later to verify that. But I should warn you that the tooth fairy pays triple for teeth with boo-boos on them. (My niece told me that).
Sounds like he bumped his mouth/tooth and the tooth is dying. Go see the dentist.
And ignore the bottle comment from someone below. Offensive and inappropriate. Let's be nice ladies.
Its dead, call the dentist. Did he hit his mouth?
Could be a bruise which will go away or he hit it and the tooth is dying. I am sure your dentist will be able to help.
Ignore the rude comments about the bottle and milk. I assume you meant that he is taking water at bedtime now. I know there is a school of thought that milk at bed time will rot the teeth quicker. As my ds ped dentist said it isn't that big of a deal and doesn't really effect much. And I had a 2 year old still on a bottle all day.....don't let the rudeness get to you.
Ladies lets all be nice and supportive please :)
I am pretty sure that means that the tooth is dying no amount of brushing will help that unfortunately. Maybe he sonehow injured it? The dentist would your best option.
This is caused by:
injury
from antibiotics (some may cause discoloration in a tooth)
BUT, have it look at by a Dentist. A Pediatric Dentist.
Has he fallen recently and hit his mouth? If it isn't brushing off then I would fear that he hit it and damaged it (if this is the case it may even fall out) but the dentist should be able to clear this up for you at the appointment.
Unfortunately I dont think anything will "clean" it off. Why no milk? He needs the calcium to keep his bones and teeth healthy, unless you are supplementing this some other way. Pretty sure no one can tell you what is going on accept the dentist.
Usually, gray teeth mean one of 2 things - exposure to high flouride content (much higher than recommended), or tooth injury. Since it's only 1 tooth, I'm betting it's injury. He probably bumped it on furniture or fell on his face at some point. Don't freak out. ;)
Tooth discoloration (internal color, not something that needs to be cleaned off) is most often associated with an injury to the tooth and its root.
Sometimes it can take YEARS for it to happen. But when a person has a tooth turn dark when they are 20 it is often because of some seemingly minor mouth injury from their childhood years, according to my dentist. I asked him specifically b/c my daughter BROKE her permanent front tooth last year. She was 8. If he hit his mouth and did NOT damage the tooth itself (didn't break, no chips) then the damage likely went up into the root, and so the damage is now showing up.
We are hopeful that, since my daughter's tooth actually broke off, that the impact was absorbed into the break and didn't damage the root and that her tooth will not turn later on.
He needs to see the dentist to know for sure what is going on. Sounds like root damage to me, though.
I had my daughter in the dentist just last week asking about a molar in the back of her mouth that, to me, looked like it was covered with tartar-very gray. The dentist said is is just discoloration in her tooth. He said that tooth did not form properly when I was pregnant with her. It is just softer than the other teeth basically. He said there is nothing "wrong" with it, and it is easier to get a cavity in it, because it is softer. We are just keeping an eye on it.
My son did have a gray front tooth when he was little. He slipped and fell and hit a slide with his mouth. It luckily did not affect the tooth underneath, and was one of his first teeth to fall out. I wouldnt stress about it, just wait for the appt.
if the child is on anti biotics, i cant spell this afternoon, it can cause the teeth to discolor, get the child back on milk, they need the calcium now more then ever, unless you want to be the mother of an very, very, short child. dont brush the childs teeth with regular toothpaste, its a poison it the child swallows it.
K. h.
It's not you or nutrition - the roots of the tooth have been damaged. One of my son's front teeth has been this way since he was 2.5 (he's 4 now). My son was playing with Daddy, and he hit his mouth on Dad's knee. A few days later, we noticed the tooth graying. Like you, I thought "oh my lord, I haven't been brushing his teeth properly - they are decaying before my eyes!" We went to the dentist, and he told us that the roots had been damaged and that this is very common. He said those roots on baby teeth are super thin and this happens easily. He did an x-ray just to be sure. This won't have any effect on his permanent tooth; it will just be not very cute until he loses it, which will likely be at the normal time that it would have happened anyway.
For about 6 months, it was REALLY gray, but it has gotten better over the last year. It's a softer gray and blends with the other teeth a little better. Or maybe i'm not as traumatized by this "flaw" in my perfect child as I was at first. :)
It will get better, and you did nothing wrong!
Updated
It's not you or nutrition - the roots of the tooth have been damaged. One of my son's front teeth has been this way since he was 2.5 (he's 4 now). My son was playing with Daddy, and he hit his mouth on Dad's knee. A few days later, we noticed the tooth graying. Like you, I thought "oh my lord, I haven't been brushing his teeth properly - they are decaying before my eyes!" We went to the dentist, and he told us that the roots had been damaged and that this is very common. He said those roots on baby teeth are super thin and this happens easily. He did an x-ray just to be sure. This won't have any effect on his permanent tooth; it will just be not very cute until he loses it, which will likely be at the normal time that it would have happened anyway.
For about 6 months, it was REALLY gray, but it has gotten better over the last year. It's a softer gray and blends with the other teeth a little better. Or maybe i'm not as traumatized by this "flaw" in my perfect child as I was at first. :)
It will get better, and you did nothing wrong!
Has is fallen and bumped his teeth? My husband allowed my son to hitch a ride on the shopping cart at Walmart when he was 3, he slipped off and bumped his front tooth very hard on the shopping cart handle bar. A few days later, I noticed that it had turned gray. About a year later he tripped and fell again and the same tooth fell out. The dentist told me that the tooth had been broken or the roots had been damaged the first time he fell and that it would come out prematurely. He lost it at 4 and was without a tooth in the front for the next 2 years until his adult tooth came in.
Your son has injured his tooth. He probably bumped it somehow and damaged the root...very similar to any other bruise. My son did the same thing around the age of two. He is now 7, and the tooth is still gray. We do have it checked out each time we go to the dentist, and everything is okay. When you take him to the dentist, they will likely do an x-ray to make sure there is no damage to the adult tooth beneath the surface. This seems unlikely, since there was obviously no major incident when the damage occurred in your son's case. As long as there is no irritation of the gum around that tooth (more specifically a little pimple of some kind, indicating infection beneath the surface) then everything should be fine. If there are any concerns, the worse case scenario would just be that the tooth would need to be extracted, and your little boy would be toothless until his adult tooth comes through. More than likely, the tooth will just remain gray in color (It will appear lighter and darker at times). We were actually at the dentist over the Christmas break, and our pediatric dentist said that this is extremely common, especially among little boys. She said if it were cause for more concern, we'd see a lot of toothless men. It's that common. Hope this helps!
This happened to my son and the dentist said it was a bruise and that it would go away. Sure enough, it went away!
Good luck!
There are different schools of thought - the whacko alternative people (like me) would say that your son's diet may be to blame, meaning is he getting enough animal fats (real butter, free range eggs and meats and vitamin d?) Also, too much flouride can weaken teeth and actually make them more susceptible to cavities. But my guess for your son would be that he hit his tooth hard? And it is dying?
I had to shop around for a dentist to find one that I felt good about. I got so tired of hearing that my kids had cavities from bottle mouth. I breastfed my baby to sleep and that ruins her teeth? I don't think so! And we are all brushing our kids' teeth like crazy and they still get cavities? My dentist said that if a baby tooth is dying, it doesn't hurt your kid (physically). It takes 5 months to a year for it to die. It turns gray then black. He can't make the tooth come back alive.
