Antibiotics and Teeth

[~me~]

I thought this worth sharing, some of you may already know about this.

My DS2 is now 3.5yrs and was a dream baby. Slept through from 7wks and just generally and easy baby to get along with. He is an August baby so we coasted through the summer and then winter hit and that's where our problems began!

He had recurring ear infections over the whole winter that lead into the summer. He had 7 in total and was initially prescribed Augmentin Duo which had no impact on the infection so it was onto Amoxcyllin (?spelling). This was prescribed for all his ear infections. In the end we ended up at an ENT and he discovered glue ear in both ears and quite a nasty infection, he put grometts in 2days later and DS2 was back to his happy little self again. The ENT explained DS2 should have been referred alot earlier to him.

We again coasted over the summer and then again winter hit and so did the ear infections, so back on the Amoxcyllin although only 2times as by the third infection the DR could not see the eardrum for the wax and was not keen to prescribe so it was back to the ENT. I also was quite firm this time in making sure we got back to the ENT ASAP. This time glue ear again and more grometts with adenoids removed to help with drainage. This did the trick and have not had a problem since.

I took DS2 for his dentist appt 2wks ago to get him familiar with sitting in the chair and so on...DS1 (who has been before) showed him the ropes . The first thing the Dentist said to me as he looked at my DS2's teeth was " did he take alot of antibiotics as a baby and was it amoxcyllin"?
When I explained DS2's history to the Dentist he said could see this as his back molars are discolored and getting caries and his teeth have been weakned due to the amount of Antibiotics and referred me to a Paedontist.

He now has to go under another general anaesthestic and have his back molars crowned with stainless steel caps to prevent further decaying and they will also take and X ray while he is under to see if any further damage has been caused. Hopefully we have started him early enough to save his adult teeth and not cause too many problems with his baby teeth.

The ear infections had to be treated there is no question about that, this thread is really just a warning to make sure you take your little ones go to the Dentist early on and unlike myself not let things go on for too long before being referred onto a specialist.

Thanks for listening

x Heather

[Neoma]

Wow thanks for the heads up. I had no idea that antibiotics could cause weakend teeth. I did know that some can cause tooth discolouration as I have seen some children with black teeth from it.