DENTAL DECAY NIGHTMARE

Auckland father Oliver Li said he is strict about his 5-year-old son Angelo’s dental hygiene, but the healthy habits slip when the boy visits his grandparents.

‘‘ It’s a cosmetic nightmare. The front teeth are black and you can see the erosion. There’s a lot of consequences.’’

If the front teeth fall out he wouldn’t be able to eat properly and he says he worries his son’s growth would be affected.

‘‘ I’m devastated, I just feel I didn’t do a good enough job.’’

Li said his 10-year-old daughter had similar problems and needed a tooth removed when she was four.

The family don’t have soft drinks at home and the children brush their teeth twice a day.

Genetics may be partly to blame as the children’s grandmother had bad tooth decay.

Dental problems can set in despite some parents’ best efforts to cut sugar from the family’s diet.

Grace Simpson never drank orange juice or took a bottle to bed as a toddler, but the 8-year-old Auckland girl has already had two teeth removed due to decay.

‘‘ Her teeth look perfectly fine, they are white and straight,’’ mother Natalie Simpson said.

A few weeks ago a bad toothache kept her daughter awake at night.

Under local anaesthesia, a dentist extracted Grace’s painful tooth on Thursday.

‘‘ She was quite upset, but she also wanted the tooth out because it was sore.’’

It could take four years for the adult tooth to come through and this is the second tooth to be removed.

‘‘ There is two tooth gaps and she said she feels ugly. She is only 8 years old.’’

Simpson said her daughter didn’t always brush her teeth twice a day, but otherwise followed a strict diet.