The Day My Son Started Pulling his Teeth Out
My son felt an irritation in his mouth. He didn't know what it was, exactly, but it felt uncomfortable. Like if you get an eye lash, you just start plucking out eye lashes until you find the right one, my son decided to start pulling out his teeth until he fixed the problem. This really happened and it's something that we just dealt with at our house.
My son, Jaron, has autism and doesn't sense pain like most. He may feel something, but it often times doesn't register as something that hurts. He's also non-verbal so he couldn't just tell us that something was bothering him.
It started by him pulling out a tooth. He's 9-years-old and had another tooth growing under it so we didn't think anything of it. It wasn't until he pulled out another tooth, and it was one of his adult teeth.
We took him to his dentist and even the ER and both said none of his teeth were loose or anything.
The following day his school called us to say that he pulled out more of his permanent teeth. Even with his teachers, paras and one-on-one helpers, they couldn't stop him. He was, eventually, lifeflighted to Seattle to see what was happening.
My wife pointed out to the dentist on-site that there was a tooth sticking out of the side of his gums. As it turns out, it wasn't a tooth, it was a bone fragment from his jaw. They were able to surgically sand it down and remove the irritation and, though he has stitches afterwards, he's not pulling the rest of his teeth out.
It was a pretty scary time in our life but, unfortunately, it's not the first case of this happening. I thought it may just be us but I learned there have been other cases of children pulling out their adult teeth in a similar situation. I'm glad we had the help and support here to accommodate our needs to get this taken care of. If you happen to stumble upon this, know you're not alone.