The trouble with thumb sucking.

Is allowing your child to suck their thumb a bad thing?

Yesterday I talked about letting your child suck on a pacifier and basically said that I had no problem with that.

I feel, that letting your child suck on their thumb is something completely different.

The biggest reason for this is the pressure that can be applied by the child's finger to the teeth and roof of the mouth.

A pacifier is passive. No force is applied by it. On the other hand, a child can use their thumb to apply a tremendous amount of force.

This force can have multiple side effects.

One of those side effects is that the upper front teeth are actually forced upward and outward.

With the teeth in this position it would become impossible for those teeth to function as they were designed to. The front teeth are meant to cut pieces of food into smaller pieces before they are moved to the back teeth for grinding it down before swallowing. If the upper front teeth do not touch the lower front teeth then it would be very difficult to cut through anything.

the next problem with teeth that do not touch would be that a child's speech patterns would be changed. During the formation of certain sounds the tongue needs to rest against the upper front teeth. If the upper front teeth are not in the proper position then the sounds made by the child will not come out as they should.

So what can be done to stop a child from thumb sucking?

There are lots and lots of ideas out there.

Some people choose the simple idea of painting hot sauce on their child's finger. Hopefully they still love you after that.

The next idea is to place an appliance in the child's mouth like the one below. The balls the sit on the wire prevent the child from getting any suction thus the child gets less satisfaction and gives up.

You can also go the route of putting something on your child's hand. The device below also prevents the child from completely sucking on their thumb.

Point is that you need to get your child to stop sucking on their thumb.

Any of these ideas would work.

The only thing I do not recommend is yelling at your kids. That never really helps anything.

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Painless tooth replacement.

"Painless tooth replacement"

"Teeth in a day"

We have all heard these claims and typically they are accompanied by promises that the doctor can,

almost magically, take out all of your teeth, put implants in, and place crowns on the teeth

with little to no pain, in just one day.

They may even show the patient biting into an apple right after the procedure.

In very rare and unique circumstances this MAY be the case. But for the other 99.7% of us, its not.

anytime you have surgery of ANY kind you need to heal.

The picture below shows a site where a tooth was recently extracted.

This site will be very tender for several days while the body heals.

That's just the way it works. Blood will rush to the site of any injury thus

creating inflammation (swelling) and moderate discomfort.

If implants are placed that too will cause some type of discomfort.

To say that teeth can be extracted and implants placed and that you can begin

eating right away with no pain whatsoever is just not true. What is typically

happening is that these people are trying to suck you in and then sell you on something else.

Simply do lots and lots of homework before letting these places touch your mouth.

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Does your child look like a shark?

Does it look like your child is getting a second row of teeth?Do you think that he may be part human and part shark?

Your child is not getting a second row of teeth, nor is he part shark. The adult tooth has simply "missed" the baby tooth and is coming up (or down) next to the baby tooth instead of pushing it out of the way. The baby tooth will, more then likely, not become much more loose on its own. Baby teeth become loose due to the pressure exerted on them by adult teeth. You will need to bring your kid into the dentist and have the baby tooth taken out.

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Dr Ellis Website

Thumb Sucking

Is allowing your child to suck their thumb a bad thing?

Yesterday I talked about letting your child suck on a pacifier and basically said that I had no problem with that.

I feel, that letting your child suck on their thumb is something completely different.

The biggest reason for this is the pressure that can be applied by the child's finger to the teeth and roof of the mouth.

A pacifier is passive. No force is applied by it. On the other hand, a child can use their thumb to apply a tremendous amount of force.

This force can have multiple side effects.

One of those side effects is that the upper front teeth are actually forced upward and outward.

With the teeth in this position it would become impossible for those teeth to function as they were designed to. The front teeth are meant to cut pieces of food into smaller pieces before they are moved to the back teeth for grinding it down before swallowing. If the upper front teeth do not touch the lower front teeth then it would be very difficult to cut through anything.

the next problem with teeth that do not touch would be that a child's speech patterns would be changed. During the formation of certain sounds the tongue needs to rest against the upper front teeth. If the upper front teeth are not in the proper position then the sounds made by the child will not come out as they should.

So what can be done to stop a child from thumb sucking?

There are lots and lots of ideas out there.

Some people choose the simple idea of painting hot sauce on their child's finger. Hopefully they still love you after that.

The next idea is to place an appliance in the child's mouth like the one below. The balls the sit on the wire prevent the child from getting any suction thus the child gets less satisfaction and gives up.

You can also go the route of putting something on your child's hand. The device below also prevents the child from completely sucking on their thumb.

Point is that you need to get your child to stop sucking on their thumb.

Any of these ideas would work.

The only thing I do not recommend is yelling at your kids. That never really helps anything.

Dr. Ellis on Facebook

Dr. Ellis Website