Five Years Old And Toothless

Weaned on sweet drinks, this boy didn't drink plain water till he was three. His family share their traumatising experience with EVELINE GAN.

- Eveline Gan

At an age when most kids would have started losing just one or two milk teeth, five-year-old Jasper (not his real name) will be entirely toothless by the time you read this.

The kindergartener has such severe tooth decay that almost all his milk teeth have rotted down to the gums and are beyond repair, except for a few lower front teeth.

The dentist would have extracted his decayed teeth via surgery performed under general anaesthesia. Jasper’s gums would also have been stitched up due to the sheer number of teeth involved.

By sharing Jasper’s horrific tooth decay experience ahead of his surgery, his family hopes to raise awareness on severe dental caries in young children. They have asked to remain anonymous due to the stigma involved.

“We’ve known about his tooth decay for some time but were still shocked (to learn that he would have to remove almost all his teeth). We are also very worried about what would happen after the surgery. I was told he might be in pain for some time,” says Jasper’s father, Michael, 30, a sales executive.

While rare, such extreme cases of tooth decay are not unheard of. Last year, the National Dental Centre Singapore (NDCS), a referral centre for the treatment of severe tooth decay, saw six young patients who required all 20 baby teeth to be extracted.

NDCS saw more than 1,800 new child patients last year, of whom 106 children had more than 10 baby teeth extracted in the operating room.

Dr Bien Lai, a consultant at the paediatric unit, restorative dentistry at NDCS, has even encountered a 11-month-old baby whose both upper central incisors (top front teeth) were decayed all the way to the gums.