Dental oddity

We took the kiddos to the dentist yesterday for a family check up. Fortunately for all of us, we are each cavity free! Unfortunately, we found out some interesting things about Tyler's mouth/teeth. I'll start by saying that it is ridiculous when they try to get him to bite down on the things to take the x-rays. He can't do it. He gags, coughs, and spits. Tyler is seven and until yesterday we have been unable to take an x-ray of his teeth because of these problems. Luckily, our dentist has the dental x-ray scanner thingy that just rotates around your head. Tyler was able to do this.
It looks something like this:

When Dr. Stobbe came into the room, he just stared at Ty's x-ray for a while without saying a word. Then, he said "This is something I have never seen before. Well, Tyler has a LOT of interesting things going on here." he then proceeded to tell me about Tyler's top row of teeth pointing things out on the x-ray image. For some reason the front permanent tooth is coming in diagonally. Then, his lateral incisor on the opposite side looks rather large. But on the other lateral incisor looks abnormally small. Dr. Stobbe is hoping that the small tooth is just sideways, but it could be a peg tooth (peg lateral).

This is an example of a peg tooth. It is kinda small and "peg" shaped.

Great. So then, after talking about treatments for things that may or may not happen with this odd top row, he says "OK, so on to the bottom teeth, which are REALLY weird." I'm thinking "Oh great, that's not all?!" He points out on the x-ray that we can see all the permanent teeth below his baby teeth. Yeah, I got that. Then, he shows me that underneath his central incisors on the bottom row, Tyler doesn't have any permanent teeth underneath the baby teeth. So now I know why he hasn't lost the two teeth everyone loses first. He doesn't have any permanent teeth to replace them! Dr. Stobbe said he has never seen this before. I know that it is relatively common to have missing permanent teeth. It is the fact that it is the front teeth and both of them that makes it unusual. He talked to me about how long baby teeth can last and that they may or may not last into adulthood, but that they will look abnormally small compared to all his other teeth (which they already do). BUT, that around 18 when all his other teeth are in, we can pull them and or put in some implants. I bet you can hear the super enthusiastic "wonderful" in my head. Sigh, well, he then asked if I have any questions. I looked at him and said "Nope, no questions I just need to start saving my money huh." he laughed and said that yes, Tyler would need some work done for sure. The funny thing was as Dr. Stobbe was talking to me, Tyler was oblivious to everything staring up at the TV. Dr. Stobbe kept saying things like "Now THIS is weird, I, uh, mean "special." He was constantly saying this and that was weird and then substituting the word "weird" for "special" and then looking down at Tyler to see if he heard. He makes me laugh. So now, we play a wait and see game until we can actually do something to correct the problems.

I, for one, TOTALLY blame Randy's side of the family for this one. ;)

I know a couple of you may be interested in seeing the x-ray. Here is a scanned copy of Tyler's x-ray printout we asked for. (He has lost 3 baby teeth his bottom lateral incisors and his front right tooth.)

FYI, by hour two and a half at the dentist, it was finally my turn. Dr. Stobbe told me "You are the last patient of the day and you have the healthiest gums we have seen today. Yeah, that's right, all my hard work is finally paying off! Lol.