We went through something similar with our oldest daughter, Skylar (now 11 yrs old). When her baby teeth first starting falling out and permanent ones coming in, her pediatric dentist (also an orthodontist) realized that the big ones weren't having enough room to come in correctly. So he formulated a plan to get them in as nicely as he could. What he did was pull the babies next to the open hole right before the adults came down - giving the adult one two small holes to fill up. Well, after doing that all down the row, as the years went by, they all were coming in real well. Then when she was about 8 or 9, he went in and pulled NINE out at once. Ugh, that was scary! I had to completely trust him on that one! He pulled 4 baby teeth and 5 permanent ones to make room for everything and to get her ready for braces. Once the rest of the perm. teeth came down after that, her teeth looked really nice. Now she has just gotten her braces to finish straightening them all out. If he had not pulled all of those like he did over the years, her mouth would have been such a jumble of misplaced out of whack teeth. He really did a great job. Poor girl though... the only baby teeth that came out naturally were the first 4 - top 2 and bottom 2. So needless to say, she's used to the teeth pulling thing. I know it helps tremendously that she loves her dentist and the assistants too. I do know that they gave her some "happy juice" to make her a little sleepy for the procedure.
I missed this post originally so I hope all went well with your daughter. I just had to post our experience because I know when I told people how many teeth Skylar had pulled, they all thought the dentist was nuts! But I think his plan has turned out spectacularly!
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~ Angie |