Only 16 mo old and Sadie already has to go to the dentist. Why? Because she has Riga-Fede Disease. Ever heard of it? Yep, me neither. But before I explain the definition lets step back in time a little.
Remember back in December when I wrote a post about Sadie not feeling pain. Well her mouth is included in not that. She does not seem to be bothered with teething and she bites her tongue and lips all the time and doesn't seem to care. In fact I have walked in her room in the morning to get her up and she is literally covered in blood. Her face, her pajamas, her sheets, the bumper pads on her crib, her stuffed animals, everything! It is disgusting. At first it would freak me out, now I am used to it. (It's kinda sad that it doesn't freak me out anymore, I'm so desensitized to everything anymore, anyways...) I would search her mouth the best I could (which is hard because she clamps down her jaw when she gets mad) but usually came up with nothing. No site of a wound in her mouth. That was until December.
In December I was looking in her mouth and found a huge canker sore on the inside of her bottom lip. It was huge and so painful looking and she could care less. I put some over the counter canker sore medicine on it and it went away. I also assumed that this was the site of where all the blood was coming from. A few weeks later it was back. I've been fighting this stupid sore for a long time. We also started noticing that around the edges of her tongue it was turning white and wrinkly (like when you have a band aid on and your finger gets wet underneath it). Finally, I made an appt for her with the dentist. Well after having to cancel the appt a million times for one reason or another, we finally got in to see him. He takes a look at her tongue and her mouth and says "she has Riga-Fede disease".
Fantastic! I think. "What is that?" He explains that it is when a child or even an adult rubs/bites their tongue in the same spot repeatedly on their teeth and after awhile it creates sores/ulcers on the tongue. It is nothing serious if it is treated, but if it goes untreated then it can cause huge problems and infections. So he gave me a cleaner and an ointment to put on her tongue and inside lip. We are going back in 2 weeks to make sure it is clearing up.
After I got home I looked up disease and started to laugh. I wouldn't have expected any other words to describe a disease especially if the disease has anything to do with my daughter. Straight from Wikipedia...
Riga-Fede disease (or syndrome) is an oral condition found, albeit rarely, in newborns that manifests as an ulceration on the ventral surface of the tongue or on the inner surface of the lower lip. It is caused by trauma to the soft tissue from erupted baby teeth.
It can be described as a sublingual traumatic ulceration. Although it begins as an ulceration, it may progress to a large fibrous mass with repeated trauma.
Did you see what I'm laughing at? The word rare. Should I have expected anything different? I included some pics of what her tongue and lip look like. They are not pics of her mouth. The little stinker will not cooperate with me. But the pics do look just like the ones in her mouth.
Remember back in December when I wrote a post about Sadie not feeling pain. Well her mouth is included in not that. She does not seem to be bothered with teething and she bites her tongue and lips all the time and doesn't seem to care. In fact I have walked in her room in the morning to get her up and she is literally covered in blood. Her face, her pajamas, her sheets, the bumper pads on her crib, her stuffed animals, everything! It is disgusting. At first it would freak me out, now I am used to it. (It's kinda sad that it doesn't freak me out anymore, I'm so desensitized to everything anymore, anyways...) I would search her mouth the best I could (which is hard because she clamps down her jaw when she gets mad) but usually came up with nothing. No site of a wound in her mouth. That was until December.
In December I was looking in her mouth and found a huge canker sore on the inside of her bottom lip. It was huge and so painful looking and she could care less. I put some over the counter canker sore medicine on it and it went away. I also assumed that this was the site of where all the blood was coming from. A few weeks later it was back. I've been fighting this stupid sore for a long time. We also started noticing that around the edges of her tongue it was turning white and wrinkly (like when you have a band aid on and your finger gets wet underneath it). Finally, I made an appt for her with the dentist. Well after having to cancel the appt a million times for one reason or another, we finally got in to see him. He takes a look at her tongue and her mouth and says "she has Riga-Fede disease".
Fantastic! I think. "What is that?" He explains that it is when a child or even an adult rubs/bites their tongue in the same spot repeatedly on their teeth and after awhile it creates sores/ulcers on the tongue. It is nothing serious if it is treated, but if it goes untreated then it can cause huge problems and infections. So he gave me a cleaner and an ointment to put on her tongue and inside lip. We are going back in 2 weeks to make sure it is clearing up.
After I got home I looked up disease and started to laugh. I wouldn't have expected any other words to describe a disease especially if the disease has anything to do with my daughter. Straight from Wikipedia...
Riga-Fede disease (or syndrome) is an oral condition found, albeit rarely, in newborns that manifests as an ulceration on the ventral surface of the tongue or on the inner surface of the lower lip. It is caused by trauma to the soft tissue from erupted baby teeth.
It can be described as a sublingual traumatic ulceration. Although it begins as an ulceration, it may progress to a large fibrous mass with repeated trauma.
Did you see what I'm laughing at? The word rare. Should I have expected anything different? I included some pics of what her tongue and lip look like. They are not pics of her mouth. The little stinker will not cooperate with me. But the pics do look just like the ones in her mouth.
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