Melbourne surgeons forced to remove rotten teeth from children due to sugary diets

EXCLUSIVE: MORE than 50 Melbourne children under five have 10 or more teeth removed — including three who had all 20 taken out — in a single year due to sugary diets.

MORE than 50 Melbourne children under five have had at least half their teeth removed through essential surgery in just one year due to sugary diets.

In the most heartbreaking cases three children under five had to have all 20 of their teeth taken out.

A surge in children with mouths so rotted and neglected they have to be placed under general anaesthetic for major operations has seen surgery rates for kids under five jump a staggering 50 per cent in just three years at the Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne.

Figures obtained by the Herald Sun reveal 53 children under five had 10 or more teeth removed last financial year because their mouths were overrun with decay.

Figures reveal 53 children under five had 10 or more teeth removed last financial year because their mouths were overrun with decay. Generic picture: iStock

With the hospital having to open its operating theatres for an extra day each week to combat the sugary surge, Dental Health Services Victoria chief executive officer Dr Deborah Cole said interventions were needed.

“It is depressing ... and it is absolutely preventable,” she said.

“A lot of people, before they hit school, have never seen a clinician and parents don’t realise their kids have big black holes in their mouths.

“It only becomes noticeable when they are in pain and cannot sleep — but nobody has bothered to look in the mouth to know we have a problem.”

The number of children under 14 needing surgery for major dental issues jumped by more than a third from 1175 in 2012-13, to 1571 in 2015-16.

But it is the younger children who have not even grown out of their baby teeth where the biggest issues are.

There has been a surge in children with mouths rotted and neglected. Generic picture: Thinkstock

During 2015-16, 816 Melbourne children under five needed major surgery at the dental hospital to remove teeth and repair their rotted mouths — more than 50 per cent above those in 2012-13.

Through programs such as its Smiles 4 Miles campaign DHSV has tried for the past three years to convince health practitioners and families to seek dental help before major issues arise, and Dr Cole said the messages to avoid sugar and have better diets needed to reach more young families.

“There were a number of people who were not even coming in to see us, so we have been trying to raise the profile through maternal child health nurses, kindergartens and childcare areas,” Dr Cole said.

“We are raising the profile to say ‘go in and have a check-up, preferably before they hit two’, so at least then we can address it.

“They (parents of surgery patients) feel really inadequate. It is challenging to their parenting because they think they have been doing the right thing and some just don’t realise.

“There are myths that baby teeth do not matter, myths about what is good food and what is bad food, myths about soft drink and whether it has sugar or not. Some of this is just about the general knowledge of health literacy.

“If you still have lots of disease in your mouth when your new teeth start coming through then you probably are on a bit of a downward spiral and permanent teeth don’t grow back — that is it, you only get one go at it.”

A DAY ON THE FRONTLINE OF VICTORIA’S SUGAR CRISIS

JAYDEN Ryan and his family have learned the painful lesson that fizzy drinks a few days a week and lollies can cause very big problems.

After a year of tooth aches and sleepless nights the Altona Meadows seven-year-old had to endure a long traumatic operation to have eight rotted teeth removed, stainless steel caps implanted on three others and four fillings placed.

Jayden Ryan, 7, has just undergone surgery to have teeth removed and repaired after suffering massive decay. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Jayden Ryan, 7, is looked after by his mother Kylie Zahra and grandmother Fawna Lennon post op. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

It is only during a waiting room conversation with a nurse leading up to Jayden’s anaesthetic that the connection between his Coke drinking and the state of his teeth is realised by his family, who had never been informed of the danger posed by soft drinks.

Despite the anguish her own family is going through, Jayden’s mother Kylie Zahra bravely decided to share their story so others can learn from it and not end up in the same place.

“He has been brushing his teeth, but he could cut down on a bit of sugar. It is mainly the food (that is the problem),” Ms Zahra said.

“He does drink sugary drinks. On Friday nights he does drink Coke because it is takeaway day.

“Sometimes I put water in it, though he doesn’t know it.

“I have noticed that in the kids’ lunch boxes, not just his but all the kids, they have chips and lollies.”

Fawna Lennon comforts her grandson Jayden Ryan, 7, as he recovers from surgery to have teeth removed. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

With her grandson in distress on her knee, Fawna Lennon is vows to make a change.

“I knew sugary drink were a problem, but he only has it once a week,” she said.

“We have got to change our diet.”

Jayden’s 1.30pm surgery is only one of eight major paediatric dental surgeries taking place on the fourth floor of the Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne on the day the Herald Sun visits.

It is like this, or worse, five days a week.

ONE IN SIX VICTORIANS DRINK WHEELBARROW OF SUGAR A YEAR

Long before Jayden was anaesthetised it had already been a long day for acting head of the paediatric surgery unit Dr Debra Elsby.

Dr Elsby started the day at 7.30am by having to remove five teeth from a five-year-old boy. He is now recovering extremely noisily nearby and it is over to his parents as they desperately try to comfort him.

In her next case a four-year-old had to have six teeth extracted, stainless steel caps placed on two, and a protective coating placed on adult teeth coming through to try and ensure they last longer than her baby teeth had.

Her third patient of the morning, another five year old, is undergoing X-rays in another operating theatre where Dr Elsby hopes she will only have to remove three teeth — though it’s likely more extreme, yet still loving, surgery may be needed.

“Definitely all his front teeth have decay, and it is looking like at least four back teeth have decay ... we try to hold on to what we can,” she said.

Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne acting head of the paediatric surgery unit Dr Debra Elsby draws breath in between surgery patients on a typically busy — and sad — day of helping young patients. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

With a team in paediatric operating theatre next door undertaking almost identical cases, Dr Elsby said her morning’s work is sadly typical.

“It is really hard, really hard, because it is a preventable disease,” Dr Elsby said.

“They are having a general anaesthetic for something that is preventable.

“Quite often when you are doing the consent at the start of the procedure the parent will say ‘it is all right, my other child has had it so I know what I am doing’.

“We don’t want it be a right of passage that your children come in for a general anaesthetic for dental problems.”

Having worked at the state’s dental hospital for seven years Dr Elsby is knows the huge importance of her work, but hopes renewed efforts to catch women during their pregnancy are while their older children are being treated to avoid younger siblings having to end up in her theatre.

“We just have to have the assumption that they do not have the education, and we are here to educated them. It’s the small changes that can make a huge difference,” she said.

Jayden Ryan, 7, with mother Kylie Zahra and grandmother Fawna Lennon post op. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

The hospital’s paediatric waiting room is filled with posters, toys and other things to keep young patients amused while they wait for surgery — including in-house superhero videos of Defenders of the Tooth featuring educational superheroes Waterboy, Munch Girl and Brush Boy.

But up to two out of three children coming here for surgery never see this room because they are so distressed by their condition or the thought of their impending operation that they require “premeds”, or sedation, to calm them.

Those needing sedation are moved to a hospital bed where they wait with a parent and nurse comforting them.

William is one such case today, with his autism adding to the anxiety. The four-year-old has had huge holes in two teeth for the past year which his mum Wendy concedes were caused by sugar and his habit for wanting a bottle.

“I think the sugar in the milk has caused the damage,” Wendy said.

“I am nervous because I have never been here before and it is the first time for me to deal with this.”

Despite sedation William is fighting the urge to sleep, which is made virtually impossible by the screaming of the five-year-old boy in a nearby bed who has just come out of emergency surgery with Dr Elsby.

As he wakes from general anaesthetic he is not happy. But far from being in pain, the boy’s mouth is completely numbed by local anaesthetic and he cannot feel anything — for good reason.

Despite being only five, the boy’s mouth was filled with so much decay that five of his teeth had died and formed abscesses which begun swelling his mouth.

The dead teeth were removed in a 30 minute operation (the shortest surgery undertaken today) but it will take much longer for the boy’s parents to consol him.

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Twitter: @mcarthurg