Ankle-what?

Tuesday, May 12

Kyla has an ankylosed tooth and she is having it pulled out tomorrow! I had actually heard of this term before in my work as a physical therapist. Not for a tooth, but a spine. When you have inflammation of the spinal column and the vertebrae start fusing together - not good.

Kyla's 2nd year molar (upper left side) is fused to her jaw bone. It's a baby tooth, so not too big of a deal. While all her other molars are moving down while she grows and have permanent teeth developing underneath, this darn anklyosed molar looks like it is sinking back into her gums because it is stuck. X-rays show that the permanent tooth underneath is not developing properly. So removing the tooth is really the only option for everything to progress normally.

I've stocked up on all the soft foods I can think of: oatmeal, eggs, smoothies, yogurt, applesauce, soup and of course chocolate pudding and Jell-O. I just remembered I need to get her iPod ready with some more relaxing music than Captian Bogg (rockin' pirate music).

She's a little nervous, but her I have assured her it will be way better than a broken arm. Plus the fact that I survived having a total of 14 teeth pulled over the years, 6 of them baby teeth.

She goes in at 9:30am for the equivalent of some kiddy Valium (that should be interesting). Then she'll have a little laughing gas and it should only take them about 10 min to do the actual extraction.

If your friends with Kyla, maybe you could send her an email at kylapc at gmail dot com.

I'll try to post an update tomorrow afternoon.