"Welcome back to How to Smile Big with Dr. Eric Leber. We have Miss Addison here, Hi! Say hello, so people always ask me when should my child see the orthodontist? I always say 7 to 8 and everyone’s reaction is always but they have so many baby teeth! They do it’s called mixed dentition, some permanent some baby. But it’s so important to come in during that stage, and she’s a good example of why. How old are you?"
"I am nine."
"Nine and you came in you were like eight, right?"
"Mhm"
"Let me show you. So she came in and this is her X-ray. This is Addison and this is this young ladies x-ray. This is her upper left, this is proper, big tooth, little tooth, pointy tooth. She has a hole extra tooth, we call that a supernumerary tooth, that’s an extra tooth. This is her permanent tooth which, look at me, this tooth. Was not in, it was stuck way up there, because of the extra tooth, the extra tooth was like a splinter and would not let it come in. So, I said OK. We came in and we said let’s get that extra tooth removed, which we did. Let me show you what she went to next, so we had the extra tooth removed by an oral surgeon, right but of course this tooth said well I was supposed to come in two years ago, I’m not coming in. So she had this tooth and it is way up here. So she had to have a second procedure where that oral surgeon actually exposed that tooth so they cut the gum back and bonded a brace onto the tooth, and we added braces all on the side to pull the tooth in and this is an exciting day she’s not done yet, but how long have you been in braces? About seven months?"
"Uh, yeah around there."
"So that tooth just broke in. So there is the tooth. It came in from way up here, and its come all the way down. So she had the extra tooth removed and then surgery and guess what if she had waited unitl 10 or 11 this would’ve been so much harder. Has it been pretty easy?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, she's super sweet so thank you."