Finnegan's Dental Savings
Don protégé
Hi, Interwebers! Thank you for taking the time to stop by for a visit. We are the Castons from Las Vegas Nevada and this is our page.
My family is in crisis and could really use your help. This is very hard for us to write about because we are proud, hard-working people who want to do it all ourselves. This isn't easy for us to ask but ultimately, this isn't for us... it's for our son Finnegan. So it's time to get humble.
So hi, come on in and meet our son FINNEGAN PAUL CASTON. He's 23 months old and desperately needs your help.
You see, Finnegan, or Finn as we like to call him, has early childhood tooth decay and is in danger of losing 7 of his teeth. It started small with little discolorations and blemishes on his teeth that we couldn't explain but the next thing we knew, Finn's teeth were in real trouble and he's not even two years old yet.
I was not even aware that this could happen in one so young so in case you weren't either, here is some information on the issue:
EARLY CHILDHOOD TOOTH DECAY
"Early Childhood Tooth Decay (ECTD) is a rapid form of tooth decay (cavity) in infants, toddlers and young children. A baby's teeth are susceptible to decay as soon as they appear in the mouth. ECTD occurs when a child's teeth are frequently exposed to sugary liquids or foods, causing frequent acid attacks which can begin to break down tooth enamel.
Frequent and long-term exposure of a child's teeth to sugary liquids is commonly called baby bottle tooth decay. Most parents are aware of baby bottle tooth decay but may not know that the long-term and regular consumption of sugary liquids in a bottle or cup puts children's growing teeth at increased risk for decay.
If left untreated, baby bottle tooth decay can result in pain and infection," says Dr. Sherwood. "Baby teeth are important because they hold the place for permanent teeth and help guide them into correct position. Severely decayed teeth may need to be extracted, which could effect the development of permanent teeth, speech and chewing."
The really frustrating thing is that pediatricians and pediatric dentists have no real explanation for this phenomenon. Finn has an older sister and an older brother who have little to no trouble with their teeth and yet Finn's are falling apart as we speak. Internet research tries to blame the problem on bottle feeding, night feedings, genetics, mouth bacteria that can be transferred from a parent to a child through sharing food and utensils, you name it. But at the end of the day, no one is sure why some children are simply prone to cavities and some are not.
So fast forward to today, my less than two year's old beautiful smile is decaying in front of my eyes. Please understand that this is very very difficult for us to share with people, but here is a picture of our little man's mouth as it currently stands:
We are good parents! We brush our kids teeth! None of our children have ever slept with a bottle in bed! Our kids don't eat sugar frequently, don't drink soda, etc etc etc. Yet here we are.
As you can see from the horrifying photo, one of Finn's front teeth has already broken and is a bare snub of a tooth now and 6 others are in immediate danger of doing the same; his other three front teeth and three molars. If they get any worse without treatment, they will all have to be pulled and he will have no teeth in their spots for 4-8 years while we wait for his adult teeth to grow in. If the molars go, he will likely have orthodontic issues his whole life as the teeth in back shift much more than those in front. To say we are devastated is putting it lightly.
(Here are some more pictures where you can see the gap in his smile already where the broken tooth is on the right).
=...(
The good news is that there's still time to try to save Finn's teeth, but not for much longer. We found a great pediatric dentist who is willing to try to save Finn's teeth by putting Crowns on all 7 of the problem teeth but we have to act fast. If the teeth get any worse, they could abscess and then removal of the problem teeth would be the only option left. The dentist said there is nothing his mom and I could have done any differently about his tooth care that would have avoided this. Its nice to know but that really doesn't make it any less depressing that our son is losing his teeth at less than two years old.
The crowning procedure is hideously expensive because 1) we have no dental insurance on Finn (who knew a one-year-old even needed it?!) and 2) because they will have to put Finn under general anesthesia to perform the work. We have been quoted $3,500.00 for the entire procedure and it has to be paid up front before the procedure can be done. Well the quote may as well have been for $3 million dollars as hard as it will be for a struggling working class family to come up with on such short notice. Yet, with my son's beautiful smile at stake, we are doing everything we can to come up with the money; applying for credit, saving every penny, even borrowing from friends and family, but time is not on our side.
That's where this page could really be a godsend to us. We're posting it for thirty days to ask friends, family, strangers, the world for anything and everything they can contribute to help us get this done. Every cent donated will go toward trying to preserve our son's teeth and anything and everything helps. We're racing against the clock as any day now more of the troubled teeth could break or even worse, abscess. Please please help my little boy. It breaks my heart not to be able to simply pay for this procedure myself but we're caught in that middle-class rut where we make too little to cover the cost ourselves, but too much to apply for any type of assistance. This page is our last hope. I don't know if it will work, asking for help is NOT my thing, but I couldn't live with myself knowing that I didn't try every single option to help my little boy.
Again, thank you for stopping by and God Bless to you and yours.
- The Castons.
My family is in crisis and could really use your help. This is very hard for us to write about because we are proud, hard-working people who want to do it all ourselves. This isn't easy for us to ask but ultimately, this isn't for us... it's for our son Finnegan. So it's time to get humble.
So hi, come on in and meet our son FINNEGAN PAUL CASTON. He's 23 months old and desperately needs your help.
You see, Finnegan, or Finn as we like to call him, has early childhood tooth decay and is in danger of losing 7 of his teeth. It started small with little discolorations and blemishes on his teeth that we couldn't explain but the next thing we knew, Finn's teeth were in real trouble and he's not even two years old yet.
I was not even aware that this could happen in one so young so in case you weren't either, here is some information on the issue:
EARLY CHILDHOOD TOOTH DECAY
"Early Childhood Tooth Decay (ECTD) is a rapid form of tooth decay (cavity) in infants, toddlers and young children. A baby's teeth are susceptible to decay as soon as they appear in the mouth. ECTD occurs when a child's teeth are frequently exposed to sugary liquids or foods, causing frequent acid attacks which can begin to break down tooth enamel.
Frequent and long-term exposure of a child's teeth to sugary liquids is commonly called baby bottle tooth decay. Most parents are aware of baby bottle tooth decay but may not know that the long-term and regular consumption of sugary liquids in a bottle or cup puts children's growing teeth at increased risk for decay.
If left untreated, baby bottle tooth decay can result in pain and infection," says Dr. Sherwood. "Baby teeth are important because they hold the place for permanent teeth and help guide them into correct position. Severely decayed teeth may need to be extracted, which could effect the development of permanent teeth, speech and chewing."
The really frustrating thing is that pediatricians and pediatric dentists have no real explanation for this phenomenon. Finn has an older sister and an older brother who have little to no trouble with their teeth and yet Finn's are falling apart as we speak. Internet research tries to blame the problem on bottle feeding, night feedings, genetics, mouth bacteria that can be transferred from a parent to a child through sharing food and utensils, you name it. But at the end of the day, no one is sure why some children are simply prone to cavities and some are not.
So fast forward to today, my less than two year's old beautiful smile is decaying in front of my eyes. Please understand that this is very very difficult for us to share with people, but here is a picture of our little man's mouth as it currently stands:
We are good parents! We brush our kids teeth! None of our children have ever slept with a bottle in bed! Our kids don't eat sugar frequently, don't drink soda, etc etc etc. Yet here we are.
As you can see from the horrifying photo, one of Finn's front teeth has already broken and is a bare snub of a tooth now and 6 others are in immediate danger of doing the same; his other three front teeth and three molars. If they get any worse without treatment, they will all have to be pulled and he will have no teeth in their spots for 4-8 years while we wait for his adult teeth to grow in. If the molars go, he will likely have orthodontic issues his whole life as the teeth in back shift much more than those in front. To say we are devastated is putting it lightly.
(Here are some more pictures where you can see the gap in his smile already where the broken tooth is on the right).
=...(
The good news is that there's still time to try to save Finn's teeth, but not for much longer. We found a great pediatric dentist who is willing to try to save Finn's teeth by putting Crowns on all 7 of the problem teeth but we have to act fast. If the teeth get any worse, they could abscess and then removal of the problem teeth would be the only option left. The dentist said there is nothing his mom and I could have done any differently about his tooth care that would have avoided this. Its nice to know but that really doesn't make it any less depressing that our son is losing his teeth at less than two years old.
The crowning procedure is hideously expensive because 1) we have no dental insurance on Finn (who knew a one-year-old even needed it?!) and 2) because they will have to put Finn under general anesthesia to perform the work. We have been quoted $3,500.00 for the entire procedure and it has to be paid up front before the procedure can be done. Well the quote may as well have been for $3 million dollars as hard as it will be for a struggling working class family to come up with on such short notice. Yet, with my son's beautiful smile at stake, we are doing everything we can to come up with the money; applying for credit, saving every penny, even borrowing from friends and family, but time is not on our side.
That's where this page could really be a godsend to us. We're posting it for thirty days to ask friends, family, strangers, the world for anything and everything they can contribute to help us get this done. Every cent donated will go toward trying to preserve our son's teeth and anything and everything helps. We're racing against the clock as any day now more of the troubled teeth could break or even worse, abscess. Please please help my little boy. It breaks my heart not to be able to simply pay for this procedure myself but we're caught in that middle-class rut where we make too little to cover the cost ourselves, but too much to apply for any type of assistance. This page is our last hope. I don't know if it will work, asking for help is NOT my thing, but I couldn't live with myself knowing that I didn't try every single option to help my little boy.
Again, thank you for stopping by and God Bless to you and yours.
- The Castons.
Organisateur
Andrew Caston
Organisateur
Las Vegas, NV