Dental care in nursing home has my Mom's teeth turning grey. Any advice?

babaloo - per chance are they using any of those sponge on stick dental swabs? They are the ones about 4" tall with a red colored sponge end attached usually by a blue band. Look in the garbage cans to see. My mom has them provided by hospice as she is bedfast and they are used for "oral health". Some of them have a pinkish dye in them to see where food is. Like those retro red-dye tablets that dentists used back in the 70's & 80's to see where cavities are. They totally can grey the teeth if they don't rinse with water - which my mom aint' gonna due - looks spooky too.

For us on retrospect, using so much of mom's spend-down $ on dental work was a really good decision. Frightfully expensive but has enabled mom to be able to bite, eat & chew with most of her own teeth. Most of those in her NH in their 90's are lucky to have 1/3 of their teeth. If you are doing this private pay, I'd call about to see if you can find a dentist who will visit her in the NH to do an evaluation to see what - if anything - is an option for her.

What antibiotics did they use for the pneumonia? If it was xxxxxxcycline, that's the cause of grey teeth.

No new drugs, except of course, she's had pneumonia on and off since January. If the facility said to me "we can't provide dental care here" we would pay for a dentist to come in. But they keep assuring us that she'll be seen. I called the rehab department this afternoon to ask for an assessment of her toothbrushing skills. My sil brought in an electric toothbrush. I don't think that I'm asking too much. We are paying $15,000 month private pay. Dentist is in addition to that. Venting, but I also want to know at what point I'm justified in calling the director of the facility and saying WTF? In more polite terms.

Grey means the tooth/teeth are dying, unless she is has been taking tetracycline, an antibiotic that makes teeth grey. So what changed in the last 3 months, any meds? Look up "tetracycline stain" and look at the pictures. If the dentist has applied silver sulfadiazine, to prevent plaque, that would also turn teeth grey.

i dont see any luxuries or frivolities at nh . they seem to be managing a heavy caseload of patients in serious decline . one lady at ednas nh has long toenails that have rounded themselves like claws . they must be painful but she clearly has no family to advocate for her . i think nh is monitoring your moms vitals and dont care about her dental care regardless of whos paying . edna doesnt keep her dentures cleaned . they medicate her for thrush and let it go . if you sit back and observe the staff , they are stomped with complicated cases , many of which require constant constant comfort sedation monitoring and dispensing .