However, my son has what the dentist called a "dental pimple", which is a small bump on his gums on the only tooth, a baby molar, where he has ever had a cavity. Apparently, when they filled the cavity about a year and a half ago, they did not completely clean away all the decay before applying the filling. As a result, the tooth nerve has begun to deteriorate.
While it doesn't bother Connor any whatsoever so far, the dentist indicated that it would only get worse and that it would definitely become problematic before it fell out naturally in a year and a half to two years.
The solution is to extract the tooth, which doesn't sound like a great solution; however, since it's just a baby tooth, it's no major life event. The dentist was very patient with Connor, explaining step by step what was involved and approximately how long it would take.
At the end of the dentist's lenghty explanation, Connor sighed quite loudly.
The dentist responded, "Oh don't worry, Buddy. It won't hurt at all. You won't feel a thing."
"I'm not worried about it hurting. That doesn't scare me at all."
"So what's the problem then?"
"Well, that sure seems like a lot of work for one single tooth that I'm only going to get $1 for!"
Sorry kiddo, but the Tooth Fairy is feeling the economic crunch like the rest of us.