I am wondering if anyone else had had this experience -
My daughter had her 2 front teeth pulled b/c they were loose & she was going to have surgery requiring intubation, and surgeons prefer you have them pulled them rather than risk knocking them out when the intubate. So the teeth came out, the tooth fairy came, and the other day (~ 3 months after being pulled) I looked at the teeth and discovered that one of them had spontaneously split into 2 pieces, and the other has a large very visible crack. No one has touched the teeth since I put them away back in October.
My daughter previously lost 3 bottom teeth, and they are all still in one piece. I am wondering if this could be a result of the pulling process - or my big fear is that my daughter might have tooth problems, as she was recently diagnosed w/ osteopenia. My husband has a dentist appointment next week & will be taking the teeth with him and talking to the dentist about it (same dentist that did the pulling), but in the meantime I am curious about whether or not other parents have found teeth to split apart like this whille in "tooth fairy" storage.
BTW, the osteopenia is most likely due to an over-medication of inhaled steroids for asthma - a whole other can of worms that we are working through w/ a variety of specialists.
TIA for any input!
Thank you all so much! I am very relieved to see that we are not the only ones with split teeth. We will still follow up with the dentist, and will inquire again at our next appointments w/ endocrinology, orthopedics, nutrition & radiology. We are hopeful that the osteopenia will be reversible, given her young age - and the fact that we are getting her off the steroids which were not prescribed within the drug manufacturer's pediatric guidelines!
Thanks again!
I think osteopenia affects the bones, but not the teeth. Maybe the teeth have become dry & brittle after being removed, and yes, it is possible they were damaged during the extraction process. Good luck to you!
You didn't ask for info re: asthma, but my friend was able to get her sons totally off inhalers. Let me know if you'd like more. Take care.
Since my son is president of the "Future Hoarders of America" club (lol), we had to keep his lost teeth so far (note to tooth fairy asking if it was OK to keep them) so I know that the 2 tooth specimens we have are still in O. piece. The latest O. has been out for about a year and it had to be pulled due to a small abscess on his gum from an old tooth trauma. I guess hers could have split when they pulled your daughter's tooth...but my son's didn't.
Since there is no longer life source nurturing the tooth (root, blood, etc.) it is natural for it to become brittle and break apart. Totally normal.
It's normal for baby teeth to split as they dry and age in tooth fairy storage. I don't think there's any way to prevent it. It does not mean there is anything wrong with the teeth or the way they developed.
As a child, I saved some of my teeth in a small plastic box. (Guess the tooth fairy forgot about me!) Several years later, I looked into the box. All of the teeth had split in two! I was surprised, but just figured it was normal. Your dentist will be able to help you figure this out.
Just this weekend, I discovered the very same thing! I was digging through my photobox of old photos, where I kept the toothfairy's stash of teeth ... and sadly found most of them split! I wondered how they could've been damaged, they were simply sitting in a shoe box in my closet. None of these teeth had been extracted ... they all fell out naturally, but almost all are split. So I'm hoping it's a normal thing. Both of my kids' permanent teeth came in nicely, no issues yet. So I'm guessing there's no correlation between the split baby teeth and any future permanent teeth.
My daughter's tooth came out on its own recently, and it has already split. My son's molar also came out on its own too, and it has a large hole through the middle of it. I plan to ask the dentist about the hole, but since the permanent teeth coming in essentially dissolve the root of the baby tooth, it wouldn't surprise me if the dissolving process may have some kind of effect on some teeth, making them more likely to split.
