Teething. How Bad Can It Really Be?

I have a 15 month old right now who is currently teething. Recently I had the experience to walk a mile in her shoes. Starting at Christmas my one and only wisdom tooth I was blessed with started to surface in my mouth. It finally popped out in late March. That was 3 months of agony on my face, ears, sinuses and more. I was advised by many “If it hurts, get it pulled” but I was determine to experience this, see things from my daughters point of view.

A toddler, has no voice to express their pain, nor the ability to understand why they are going through this pain. I as an adult, knew exactly what this was, and why it was happening. I went into this with the state of mind, the only pain method I would take was baby teething tablets, to understand the full experience

A tooth coming to surface starts as a mild pressure in the gum line, every so often if you are chewing food and it gets into the area of that tooth it becomes uncomfortable. After about a month, it becomes painful, no longer a weird pressure when you bite on it.

Some nights you wake up from throbbing in your face, it hurts to eat most foods and you just want to eat mushy foods, anything touching the teeth around that coming in tooth aggravates it. Someday the only thing that is soothing is to gnaw on something. I found my self with out thinking, chewing on my fingers to relieve the ache.

Closer to the time of tooth eruption, my nose dripped, my sinuses ACHED my ears ACHED I was constantly rubbing on them to find relief, nothing worked. Teething tablets, offered a mild temporary fix but not for long, and mainly took the edge off.

The breaking of the skin was the most painful experience, my mouth everyday was slowly being cut open a little more and more each day. The ear ache grew, my nose was running non stop and my nose itched like crazy all the time.

Finally this tooth came out, and now I am experienceing chewing food with it. At first it was painful, as it was getting settled in, the area around my gums still sore, and swollen from all that pressure and breaking. It felt weird, my mouth didn’t recognize it. I kept running my tounge over it and chewing on my cheek familiarizing my self to this new thing in my mouth.

Now its been out for about 2 weeks and it is like its been there the whole time. The agony is over, and I hope I can show a bit more compassion to my daughter as her teeth bother her, and she is melting to painful tantrums, not understanding her own pain and why it is there. I knew it was hurting her, now I understand and KNOW how much it really is.

#teething #toddlers #teethingtablets #teeth #baby