@eirrann.eth

Another super-proud dad moment. Six months ago, my 13-year-old son’s dentist noticed very early-stage cavity development between his two front teeth. She caught it early enough that it fell within the effective window for a newer treatment called Curodont (link in thread if you're interested in discussing with your child's dentist), which can help restore enamel if conditions are right. Gemini’s surprisingly clear summary: “an FDA-approved, non-invasive, drill-free professional dental treatment designed to reverse early-stage tooth decay (white spot lesions)”. Today we had the follow-up. The dentist said it looks like the treatment is working: _really_ working. She was initially almost in disbelief. By the time she was done with his follow-up, she seemed visibly impressed. She told us it doesn’t always work at all – let alone this well – and that the biggest factor here appears to be that my son actually followed through on the guidance she gave him six months ago about how to improve his thoroughness when brushing, flossing and using mouthwash. She also said she’s _proud_ of him. They reapplied the treatment today and she’s optimistic the enamel will fully recover. She showed me the X-rays from six months ago and from today: the faint dark spots that indicated early decay have almost completely disappeared. The visible deterioration she saw back then is nearly gone now too. This brings me to a broader theme. I was recently talking with my twin about how we wish things like the associates degree program my son has applied to for high school next year even _existed_ when we were kids. Programs like that can save thousands of dollars and literal years of your life if you continue on to a bachelor’s degree. I wish treatments like this existed back then too. But I also have to recognize something important: my son is doing things my twin and I didn’t do as kids. He’s putting in the daily work: with his teeth, and with school. He’s earned consistent A-B grades that make programs like that even possible, and he takes standardized testing seriously enough to score in the 80-90th percentiles. I think it helps that my wife and try to underscore the importance of topics like this through our behaviors as parents. That it’s modeled, not just instructed. For the past couple years, my son and I have been brushing our teeth at the same time, side-by-side at the sink. My wife and I also hold him to high expectations about his schoolwork that we genuinely believe he can meet, because he has proven capable: and then reward the effort in meaningful ways when he does. I wish my own mom, drowning as a single parent far below the poverty line and working 2-3 jobs at a time, had had the space, resources or energy to help my twin and me understand how much healthy teeth matter. Or how much early academic momentum matters. Or that there had been systems and treatments back then that could actually give you a second chance if you were trying but imperfect. I often tell my son: “I’m trying to raise you to be a better person than I am.” His teeth. His schoolwork. Programs like the AA track. These are concrete examples of what I mean: helping him do the annoying, unglamorous work now so that life is easier later, at a point when it’s often already too late to catch up. Sometimes, parenting feels like planting trees you may never sit under. Days like today make the feeling of resting in the shade of those trees very real. (In the attached image, I've had GPT compile photos I snapped of the X-rays that the dentist took six months ago and today, for better comparison. The slight dark spots in the circled areas on the right are where the cavities were starting to develop. On the left, they've almost completely disappeared, showing only as really faint spots that only a professional might recognize as signs of weakening enamel. This aligns with the material improvement compared with the visible deterioration she had seen six months ago.)

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