Ebru İmren

There can be many reasons. Medicines that have been used, antibiotics, illnesses the child has been through may all have sped the process up. But there are two things we can do right now to stop it and keep it from going further: getting oral hygiene under control, which means brushing, and making sure the diet keeps the child away from foods that cause decay.

Parents sometimes ask what they should feed the child so the teeth grow stronger. I tell them that what the child does not eat matters more than what they do eat. Almost every packaged food containing refined sugar needs to be kept out of the way.

It is widely believed that antibiotic use in infancy is on its own enough to make teeth decay, and along with it, that how often the child brushes and what the child eats cannot stop the process.

In fact it can be stopped. Regular brushing and an ordered diet are the two main factors that slow the process down and, more often than not, halt it.

We were carrying out root canal treatment on an upper molar. During the session the patient described severe pain, and the sinus discharge would not stop.

At that point I did not think it right to push on and finish the treatment in the same visit. I stopped, sealed the tooth temporarily, prescribed medication and called the patient back for a second and then a third session. Carrying on while the pain persisted would have made both that day and everything after it harder.

The intracanal medication and the painkillers we used between sessions worked; the pain went and the picture improved. What reassured me in this case was that I had not tried to rush it to a finish.