9 replies to this topic

[megsybeth]

Hi Everyone,
Have you had or heard of a child growing teeth without roots? I'm at the dentist now and she showed me xrays of my 4yo who had a major cavity. she saw that tooth and the one on the opposite side have no roots. She said the only time she's ever seen it is because of chemotherapy. DS has gluten intollerance (I still think celiac though tests havent supported that). I have cobfirmed celiac and was active and eating gluten when pregnant and probably for 25 years before that.
Megan

[Mizzo]

Hi Everyone,
Have you had or heard of a child growing teeth without roots? I'm at the dentist now and she showed me xrays of my 4yo who had a major cavity. she saw that tooth and the one on the opposite side have no roots. She said the only time she's ever seen it is because of chemotherapy. DS has gluten intollerance (I still think celiac though tests havent supported that). I have cobfirmed celiac and was active and eating gluten when pregnant and probably for 25 years before that.
Megan

It's my understanding, when the teeth are ready to fall out the roots have eroded. The adult teeth that are coming in cause the roots to be reabsorbed into the body. That is why when baby teeth fall out you NEVER see a root on them. Maybe the new ones are ready to come in ??

[GottaSki]

I was missing two adult teeth - top incisors - I had the baby teeth for them - Ortho made my k9s look like incisors (well almost).

No idea if it was celiac related. I was also missing a tiny inner ear bone and my lowest vertebra was malformed. never found any - except the vertebra seems to be improved in most recent xray.

[megsybeth]

Thanks for the responses. He's recovering on the couch after a big morning at the dentist's. Poor little guy.
Mizzo, the teeth don't have fully formed roots. He does have some adult teeth coming in in other places (back molars) but in this case, you can see on x rays that nothing is underneath and that the teeth are little squares. Also, the pediatric dentist is probably pretty famliar with how teeth look on little kids before they fall out.

Gottaski, that's interesting about those other missing pieces. My ds also seems to have a soft palate thats' not all the way closed, allows air to escape. I feel like part of it is maybe some lack of nutrients in utero, some of it is just the mystery of this disease. I really think we'll know so much more in a decade, but it's frustrating now to try to puzzle it all out.

[shadowicewolf]

It's my understanding, when the teeth are ready to fall out the roots have eroded. The adult teeth that are coming in cause the roots to be reabsorbed into the body. That is why when baby teeth fall out you NEVER see a root on them. Maybe the new ones are ready to come in ??

I was the opposite. Almost all of my baby teeth had massive roots on them. Due to this, the dentist had to remove almost all of them because i couldn't do so.

[Takala]

I am a dental freak, in that I have adult top incisors front which have had "no roots" since at least the very early 1980's, when my dentist at the time discovered this when I was finally considering getting braces as an adult to correct the bad bite. No chemo was involved. He was one of those wonderful old- fashioned dentists, you should have heard him exclaim when he saw the x-rays "why, look at this!" as he explained gently that if I could, I should try to get some of it straightened to prevent even more damage, as it would be easier to keep cleaned. It's caused by my lower jaw teeth hitting the uppers in the wrong way. The teeth start out with roots, then that part disappears from the trauma wearing them down, of not everything fitting in the same space. The jaw problem is also connected to the arthritis. I cannot open my mouth quite as far as a regular person, either. And I still have these floating front incisors, knock on wood, but I try to be pretty careful with them, obviously, as they are being held in place by gently overlapping just a bit of the other fronts and the gums only. They had to pull 7 teeth to make enough room to do the braces ! 3 wisdom teeth and 4 bicuspids were taken out in 2 different sessions. Then I had adult braces for a long time on just the top, (no fun) trying to push things around enough to be able to then let them put braces on the bottom, to get that stuff more where it should have been. The guy who did pull the bicuspids was amazing, after I had a not so great wisdom tooth extraction experience. I told him I didn't want to be knocked out this time, just numbed, and he finally was convinced I was serious, made the appointment, did it quickly and I didn't feel a thing. Healed up quickly, too.

I always have to warn any medical/dental peeps going anywhere near my mouth- my top two fronts are just being held in there by the gums, so please, be careful !

Odd thing about dentists, they seem to know a lot more about the effects of arthritis and gluten intolerance/celiac on your mouth, and are more sympathetic, than any of the incompetent HMO doctors I saw 20 years later, when I was having a lot of arthritic flares before going gluten free. Me: "I have arthritis in my jaw, per my orthodontist and regular dentist. Also, dry mouth. and I've worn braces... this is not how my original teeth came in. " Incompedoc: "No, you're too young for that." Me: THIS form of arthritis does this. Incompedoc: ~~~~blah, blah~~~~ blood test, ~~~negative~~~~~ blah, blah....
Me: No, not rheumatoid. I have proof.... call my dentist. They're all saying it's in the jaw. Incompedoc: Open wide, then. Let's have a look here. Me: this is as wide as it goes, bubba. and DON'T hit the biters with that tongue depresser stick.

I remember reading an explanation somewhere as to why celiacs tend to have smaller jaws, a tendency towards more tooth crowding (besides the cavities thing) and it having to do with growth rates and hormones and when certain body parts mature, I wish I had bookmarked it. But there are plenty of non- celiacs with crowded or missing teeth, too. And then there is what I call funky trauma.... I have had two rambunctious young gelding yearling horses knock their version of front baby teeth out in accidents... way before the age they were supposed to lose them naturally. The one horse who had to have the vet sew part of his jaw muscles back together on his cheek, (gaaaaah ! ) I was told he might not get adult front teeth coming in there after that, but, miracle of miracles, he did. They're just a little bit crooked, and he has a faint scar. The other one, who just showed up one day, cheery as usual, no obvious pain, minus his top two front teeth without the explanation of what/how, now as an adult horse, still has one missing front tooth, because the adult one never came in to replace it. Hasn't slowed down his grazing ability much, nor does he have trouble holding weight at all, other than when the grass is super, super short he does like his hay quite a bit. Anyone watching this horse for five minutes, playing around picking up and carrying things within his reach, untying other horses with stealth and craft worthy of a cartoon character, or working a double gate latch wouldn't be surprised that this happened

[shadowicewolf]

Really?

I had to have braces for 7 years for a small jaw/overcrowding/teethnotcomingin/etc.... Luckily i didn't have to have any removed. It was either start treatment at a young age or have to break my jaw, insert plugs from the hip, then work on straitening the teeth out.

[megsybeth]

I have a very small jaw, over-crowding and, at 4, my DS's dentist said "Oh yeah, he's going to need braces" because of the same issues.. It's really funny these things that come up. I've only been diagnosed with celiac for three months, which seems crazy, but it's been the first time in my life where my experience has started to seem real. Since childhood it's always been about everything being in my head. I'm a little sad about my son because I worry about what my gluten intake might have done to him. People tell me it's not my fault. Of course not, but it's natural to feel a little sad about something so simple that could have been done to improve both our lives.

[Takala]

When they showed me my young adult mouth x rays it was quite a surprise to not only see that the front incisors were floating, but that the lower wisdom teeth would never be able to erupt, because they were trying to come in growing horizontal sideways from the back, instead of coming up vertical.

[jhol]

When they showed me my young adult mouth x rays it was quite a surprise to not only see that the front incisors were floating, but that the lower wisdom teeth would never be able to erupt, because they were trying to come in growing horizontal sideways from the back, instead of coming up vertical.

this is really interesting - i had to have 3 wisdom teeth removed because they were growing horizontal like yours and one was even growing out towards the cheek. the fourth only came through coz id had a back tooth removed due to an abcess. had problems with teeth the past 2 years- had more done to them than in the last 40 years!!!