MicroBlog Mondays-We Have Shark Teeth

I can't remember how old I was exactly, but somewhere between the ages of 5-10, I noticed a weird bump on the roof of my mouth. It was sore, like I scraped it on some food, so I didn't say anything. But one day I felt a pointy object protruding from the roof of my mouth with my tongue and told my mom. A trip to the dentist and subsequent x-rays revealed I had a tooth growing straight down from the roof of my mouth that they wanted to take out. There was also one growing in the same spot but straight upward that they were going to leave in. They put me to sleep and had to cut the tooth from my palate. I remember having stitches but little else. (I had tons of teeth pulled when I was little, and put to sleep quite a few times for the procedures, so it was no big deal to me.)

When my oldest child was in first grade her teeth started growing in crooked. Unlike when I was little, they don't pull teeth to make room anymore, rather they start orthodontia treatment. On our first consult (with the same guy who out braces on my teeth way back when) he pointed out an extra tooth on her x-ray. Hers is located above all the other teeth and isn't in the way at all, and won't ever break through, so it's just a quirky finding on her, although he was fascinated that I also had this strange extra tooth thing, too.

We just all went to the dentist a couple weeks ago, and my 9 year-old son has been discovered to also have one extra tooth above his front adult teeth. We have to go for a consult to be sure, but it is likely another benign finding that makes us all a little quirky. The technical term is supernumerary teeth or hyperdontia. Otherwise known in my family as shark teeth.