Hi. So my son who is 12 and autistic needs to have two of his adult teeth removed and two fillings. He’s struggled with every aspect of brushing his teeth over the years and has had huge meltdowns to the point were he has lashed out and injured me. The issues with teeth brushing started around 8 years old. I’m autistic myself and hate brushing my one teeth (although I make sure i do twice daily) so I understand why my son struggles but it’s been horrendous. I’ve spent a small fortune over the years on various different brushes manual and electric and have bought lots of different types of toothpastes including foamless/flavourless but nothing worked. He is under a dental hospital as he lashed out at our family dentist, ran off several times, refused to open his mouth etc so our dentist essentially washed his hands of him. Only since being told that he’d need to have teeth removed has my son got slightly better at brushing his teeth. Although he is demand avoidant so he still tries to avoid it but eventually he will do them. I have two older children who don’t have so much as a filling in their mouths and deep down I know I have tried my absolute best with my son yet I still feel like a failure as a mother. I keep over thinking it constantly and can’t shake the anxiety over him having teeth removed. I have an adult tooth missing (not due to not brushing) that I lost in my early 30’s and I hate the gap that it has left as it makes me feel self conscious so I feel terrible that my son might feel the same way.
