Crying isn't just for new teeth anymore...

Maddie has has 2 teeth since about the time she turned 1. The first one started coming in around 11 1/2 months, and the second one started a few weeks later, and they both took their sweet little time coming all the way down, but by about the time she was 12 1/2 or 13 months, they were there. Two adorable little bottom teeth! But no top teeth in sight...we waited, we looked, we felt....just in case anyone is curious, it really hurts when you are trying to feel if there are top teeth coming in and those two tiny little sharp bottom teeth close on your finger and hit the skin right at the base of your nail....yikes! Fortunately I was only "no fast enough" a few times before I caught on! She thought of course it was hysterically funny, probably because we play at nibbling her fingers, and so she was just doing the same thing!

So finally, a few weeks ago, right about the 16 month mark, we started seeing for SURE that more teeth were coming! We were so happy because we thought she was just going to be our two tooth girl forever! But no, new teeth. But not just one or two new teeth, no! She is getting 4 new teeth! All four across the front are coming in as we speak. It's made for some rough days for our poor girl. The end of last week and this weekend were especially brutal and I began to suspect that there was possibly a 5th tooth coming in as well, maybe one on the bottom.

Under the advice of a doctor friend of ours, we have been doing what they call "piggybacking" motrin & tylenol. Motrin, then 3 hours later- tylenol, then 3 hours later, Motrin again. By doing it this way it reduces the "peaks & valleys" and helps to keep the pain management even. But no amount of Tylenol or Motrin was helping this weekend! We are talking HOURS of crying- little girl up until midnight...not wanting her bottle and not wanting to eat but asking to eat. Every time she went to bite down on her bottle she would start crying and push it away. Same with just about any kind of food. Maddie is a 6-7 bottle a day girl, and she's done perhaps 1 bottle a day (or less) since Saturday.

Finally on Sunday we tried chicken broth from a sippy cup because she was just not drinking fluids at all- this worked and she drank 2 or almost 3 bottles worth of this on Sunday, but still the girl was in some serious pain. We still could not see anything, and thought the pain was because of Teething. Still, it seemed way worse pain than was appropriate even for getting 4 teeth at a time, so I called for a doctor's appointment on Monday and got her into to see Dr Liz. Dr Liz took one look in her mouth and said, 'it's not just teething'.

Turns out our girl has coxackie Virus- which apparently, is a VERY common virus and most kids will have had it. She said that there is little to no chance of us getting it because we most likely had it as kids & are therefore now immune to it. This is in the same family as hand foot & mouth disease- so lots of little sores in her mouth and throat, that make it very painful to swallow. No wonder our girl has not been wanting to eat!!

The good news is that since it's been going on since Friday or Saturday, the Dr said we only have 2-3 days left of it...but our poor girl has been in such pain and this has been so hard! She will be thrashing like she's having a night terror, but it's just anger and frustration and hurt, and she can't get comfortable because her throat hurts. We did get proper (HIGHER) dosage info for tylenol & motrin from the Dr, including instructions for more frequent dosage, as well as a little mix to soothe the sores. It's hard to say if it's helping yet because we just started it last night, but hopefully today it will help. She was able to get down last night at 8:00 to bed, but then was up from 11:30-1:45 am in pain just crying crying crying- not wanting to be held but not wanting to be put down- mostly just not wanting her mouth to hurt so much. It was awful because the next Motrin wasn't due until 2 am at the EARLIEST, and we just didn't make it to 2 am before she fell asleep, so I've got the Motrin at the ready for when she wakes up this morning, and hopefully it won't be so bad.

The good news is that when she is playing and active during the day, she can generally be distracted by it and it's not all encompassing, so she has a little relief during the day, but at night, it seems to be all encompassing. Let's hope that this is really just about over- it's truly heartbreaking to see your little one in pain and know that you are doing everything and can't do anything more, but they are still in pain....