My Son Heard a Crack When She Pulled Out His Tooth

Last night my son told me that he heard a cracking sound when his tooth was pulled out by the dentist.

This came after 5 very difficult days and gave me a clue as to how to finally help him to find some peace from the pain.

It was a wonderful reminder how our symptoms will often persist if the emotional/psychological basis has not been addressed and even when we do all the ‘right’ medical things.

On Tuesday night we barely slept. My son was in so much pain that paracetamol did not touch sides. We managed to get him a dentist appointment on Wednesday. The dentist said it was an abscess and the tooth must be pulled out. For various reasons it wasn’t removed then. I managed to get a booking first thing on Thursday and I tried to keep him comfortable during the day.

I also bought some Neurofen to prepare for the night.

It was another bad one. He screamed, cried and tossed and turned. At one point he was headbutting my husband in the back while his legs were writhing on top of me. Sleeping with him is like sleeping with an electrocuted octopus at the best of times and this was 10x worse!

First thing on Thursday my husband took my son to the dentist and the tooth was pulled out. We were all greatly relieved and hoped that good sleeping would be possible.

But it was not to be so. On Thursday night he woke us at 10:30pm. He was crying and told me that his teeth were sore!

When I phoned the dentist on Friday she said that he shouldn’t have pain unless the abscess was under the adjacent tooth but she didn’t believe that was the case. She also did tell me that he had felt some pain despite the anaesthetic but she’d gone ahead and removed the tooth as she needed to get it out (my husband was at the appointment so I didn’t know this).

Over the weekend he still wanted to sleep in our bed and still woke up crying that his teeth were sore.

By now I was getting worried and we were just wanting this all to stop.

Last night at bedtime he was hyperactive, irritable and unable to sleep. Finally, he begged to sleep in our bed and said he was having nightmares (although he wasn’t yet asleep). This was an alarm bell for me as I suddenly realised what was happening.

I said I thought perhaps he was having memories or thoughts and asked him what he was thinking. He said he was scared to have another tooth pulled out and whenever he closed his eyes he kept hearing the cracking sound that he heard when she pulled the tooth out.

He was having a trauma response.

These are typical acute trauma flashbacks that happen in the immediate aftermath when the brain tries to make sense of something that felt threatening and was traumatic.

I encouraged him to just close his eyes and hear it and feel the feeling in his body and I held him and stroked his head. As he did this he told me he could feel a lot of anxiety in his belly and his head and teeth started to get more and more painful. I encouraged him to feel and stay with it and said he would be helping the pain to go away if he did this.

He finally started to yawn (a sign of nervous system release) and his body began to soften. The pain started to go away and he said he felt better. Then he fell asleep.

And slept through the night without complaining of any pain.

This was such a great example of pain that is actually psychosomatic. Because of the body and mind connection physical pain can be the manifestation of trapped emotion and unresolved trauma. I could keep giving him Neurofen or paracetamol but it wasn’t going to resolve the pain because the pain was his body’s memory of the trauma of having that tooth removed.

His body was still holding onto the trauma of that pain and the sound. With me supporting him to feel it and process the trauma the pain was finally released because it was actually a trauma memory.

Our fatigue and other symptoms are also often related to trapped emotions and unresolved emotions and no amount of supplements and medical treatment will resolve it. Maybe we can put a ‘band aid’ on with some of the medical protocols (just like the paracetamol could numb the pain for a while) but it won’t be fully resolved until the whole body, mind and spirit picture is addressed. To find out more about how these all come together to create chronic fatigue read here and here.

This is why people can have pain and fatigue that often does not make sense and does not heal despite the hundreds or thousands spent on tests and treatments.

Does this resonate with you?

Do you have any questions about this? Please feel free to comment below or set up a complimentary discovery call to see how your own body, mind and spirit balance/imbalance could be impacting your health.