Are Some Chemicals Good for Us?
When I kept that dentist appointment last week, I learned once again that I have yet another cavity, the second since moving to Our Little House nearly four years ago.
Dale and I both have issues with grinding our soft teeth and as a result, I’ve had to have one crown so far and have two more scheduled. Dale has had to have so much dental work done since moving here I couldn’t tell you what all it has been, but I know it has included several fillings.
My questions is why, after years of good check ups in Kansas City did we start to have cavities again?
When we moved here, fluoridated water we drank all of our lives was no longer available. I also stopped using fluoridated toothpaste, opting instead for a natural brand containing little more than baking soda from our natural food store.
Was this the wrong move? Do some chemicals actually do what the government says they will do for us?
Both of our families have a history of bad teeth. My Depression era parents had poor diets well into their teens and both smoked. By the time I was born in their late 30s, both had dentures. My siblings all had horrible teeth and have had extensive dental work. Dale’s family history is similar. As well, Dale had a history of irregular dental visits until he met me at age 18.
The point is, I think our teeth may have needed all the help they could get and that could have included the fluoridated water we were drinking all of our lives from the tap.
Then again, it could just be another side effect of getting older.
I’ve researched online and the information I came up with in regards to fluoride is that there is no scientific studies that I could find that says there is a link between fluoridated water and any illness. The exception to that is that too much fluoride can hurt teeth and bones. But the CDC recommends exposure to fluoride as a means to preventing cavities for both children and adults.
The websites I found discounting the use of fluoride were natural remedy websites, all of which did not have scientific sources or studies linked to their claims that fluoride raises the rate of cancer or causes other health problems.
There are some things I think are worth the potential health risks. Microchipping pets, for example. The risk of tumor around the injection site is so small compared to the risk a pet will get lost or stolen and end up in a high kill shelter, doomed if they have no identifying chip.
I like our dentist, but I don’t like the pain of cavities, injections or the drilling required with fillings, so I am leaning more toward going back to fluoridated toothpaste and a rinse to make up for the lack of fluoride that is no longer present in our drinking water.
What do you think, readers? Do you go ALL natural or are there some things worth the risk?
Kerri,
I forgot to answer one of you questions
“But I do find it strange that when we move to another area, these cavities suddenly make themselves known, after literally many years of no cavities while living in the city.”
and I just thought about something!
Here in Sweden many people like to retire often move to their small cabins and have indoor log fires and barbeque with hot coals and eating often overcooked foods especially meats.
They often come down with cavities and its the same old story! Dentists here call it “tandvård stuga tänder” direct translation “dental cabin teeth”
This is caused by the wood burning fires and smoke, the wood breathes in all the fluoride from coal power plants from around the globe and when burnt lets it out! Same for the barbeque coal.
As people get older they often start snoring and especially after a few drinks, and this is not good for breathing in toxins through the mouth while the nose has bacteria fighting mechanisms to protect the person.
Another cause for concern from the burnt and over cooked foods is that high doses of Acrylamide which is a carcinogen which also encourages bacteria in the gums and teeth.
Hope this may help you figure out the cause of your dental problem.
So these could be possible reasons for your onset though often cavities take time to became viable in adults so they still may well have started in the city.
Regards
Benny
Wow, Benny! First, thank you so much for your thoughtful post, it really explains a lot. We do heat with a wood burning stove! I’ve never heard of this “Dental Cabin Teeth” condition before! What a revelation. Thank you as well for the link, I will take a look at it this weekend! I’m glad you stopped by Living Large and hope you will come by more often!
PS! Please excuse my English in my last post on dental fluoride.When I first wrote the email it would not post, and then had I to write it again! I have to think twice when writing in English while thinking in Swedish!
Thank you, Benny, for your comments. I’m sorry you had problems posting at first. I would love to have some links to studies about fluoride. I hope in the reference of “you lied about” you meant our governments. I’m certainly not an advocate of any chemicals. You can find many posts in the archives of ones we’ve eliminated from our lives. But I do find it strange that when we move to another area, these cavities suddenly make themselves known, after literally many years of no cavities while living in the city.
Hello Kerri, Yes indeed I meant to write, “your government has lied to you, and us all”.
Very sorry for my grammar and spelling, which made my post look as if I was saying something else!!
That’s true about the report mentioning reducing the fluoride in the water supply, but this is a scam to keep doing what they have been doing poisoning us.
I will cover a few things I left out yesterday…
The industry who produces this waste product would have to pay millions if not billions to dispose of this fluoride, if they could not sell it,so they have lobbied and controlled the data (phony data) with backhanders to keep us all consuming it.
Fluoride makes us dopy and placid something most governments like,they learned this from Stalin and Hitler they put fluoride in the water in the camps to make the inmates placid!
Do you know that fluoride cannot be dumped into the sea or in any lake reservoir water source except municipal water! Because its so toxic and would kill all animal life!
This class 2 poison is not the same thing as natural “Fluorine” ever wonder why wild animals have wonderful teeth yet they have no known source of fluoride we don’t need it either.
All metals react with fluorine, forming ionic fluorides, so if you have any metal fillings watch then erode, watch your teeth fracture letting in bacteria to rot your teeth.
Have you noticed with the recent terrible disaster in Japan for example how many Japanese have bad teeth for such healthy eaters? Those who have been exposed to volcanic ash air source with its high fluoride content from their regular erupting volcanoes, suffer just like everybody else exposed to this poison.Indonesia is another country with volcanoes spewing out lots of fluoride and many of them in the areas breathing in this air have very bad teeth despite yet again a very healthy diet.
Did you know children exposed to smoking even if in another room and bad air from such things as coal fires start breathing through the mouth and snoring this one act alone makes the condition even worse! Sleeping with the mouth open whether normal air or contaminated causes not just tooth decay but tonsillitis and other mouth disorders.
The Vikings, Celts and American Indians knew this secret! When children were born they were taught to breath through their noses, and would be exposed to the colder night air to sleep away from the fire and tobacco for the American Indians or just outside the tepee, with the mother gently pinching the lips closed so the jaw and teeth would form correctly and not be exposed to smoke and bad air which would make their teeth rot. So had wonderful teeth without fluoride!
This is one of the reasons most cot deaths were caused, smoking parents and household coal fires, and bad air from car fumes,which carries and carries.The toxic fluoride is one of the long term fracture’s of our teeth and bones.So if the child survives being suffocated from toxic smoke its going to be ill and defiantly get bad teeth, having been forced to breath through the mouth!
I can think of one site directly called
http://www.fluoridealert.org/
and it has lots of good facts, information and resources, videos and links.
Regards
Benny
I came here by another article by chance.But I must say something about dental heath here.
As a retired dentist and scientist in Sweden with no fluoride in the water. I can assure you that your cavities are NOT a result of lack of fluoride! Fluoride is a deadly, not only to your teeth but to your bones, joints and mental health. It is a class 2 poison! This poison a waste product that’s put in your civic water is the cause of the mass dental poor health in the USA. The cavities you have did not suddenly arrive in just two years as an adult without fluoride, they would have been forming for longer than that.
Do you know for example that some parts Northern Sweden, Iceland and parts of the UK suffered terrible cavities because of the volcanic ash from Iceland after an eruption.In Iceland if there livestock is not brought in directly the animals will loose all their teeth and die from the heavy fluoride! Look at the teeth of coal miners,coal is full of fluoride and coal miners are well known to gave terrible teeth. Heavy smoking also has huge amounts of fluoride and is probably the major cause of cavities in modern society! Childhood cavities are linked to poor nutrition MSG contamination which is almost every American food and exposure to poor air which is loaded with you guessed it fluoride from coal power plants and fluoride from 2nd hand smoking.
All the foods you buy that are grown by enlarge in the USA are from fluoridated municipal water, so you are getting huge amounts whether you use municipal water or not, and don’t use fluoride toothpaste!
The fluoride that is put in your water is a waste product washed out of chimney stacks with power hoses and sucked up as is into big tankers and pumped into the municipal water! Its not been purified its not pharmaceutical its a waste product that is full of Lead, Arsenic,Uranium etc etc! Though now you are getting in most of America dried Fluoride from china from one of the most toxic places on the planet!
Here in Sweden over the past 15 years American and Australian wine especially has become very popular. What’s now emerged is that many people have been suffering terrible ailments and could not place it, even being told drinking to much wine! The cause wine grown in the USA and Australia getting there water from fluoridated municipal water, soon wine will be banned from these sources because of this dangerous poison that you have lied about.
Maybe you researched fluoride issues in America. Have you looked into why almost all of Europe has banned the use of fluoride (an industrial waste product that needed to find a good home and so was recycled into our drinking water). Or the connection between fluoride and Alzheimer’s?
I did know that Europe had banned it from the drinking water, but I couldn’t find any actual scientific studies as to why or linking it to any diseases. I only found websites that said it was bad without backing the claims up with studies. If you have links to those, I would love to read them. You know I’m very skeptical to all chemicals and have even banned the microwave from my house.
I found your blog from MSN. I work for a dental office and my dentist recommends flouride toothpast and even floride mouth wash – that should stop your cavities – or at least make them happen less often.
Thanks, Tiffany! I’m glad you found us here at Living Large.
I went through this several years after we moved to a place with well water. I was so stumped, then a neighbor pointed out the fluoride thing.
We DO use fluoride toothpaste, but I recently dumped Coltgate Total because the antigingivitis ingredient (triclosan) is a known endocrine system disruptor. I go next week for a regular cleaning. I hope my dentist doesn’t think my gums have gotten worse without the strong ingredient in the toothpaste.
As for adding fluoride back into your life, try that ACT rinse before bed (maybe a few times a week). I tried it, but it gave me blisters in my mouth at first.
Thanks for the tips, Roxanne. Good luck with your dentists appointment!
When I was an editor at Parenting magazine, the fluoride controversy was always coming up, along the same lines as the no-vaccine movement. I did some research and came down on the side of fluoride. There really is a reason the dentists love it so much, even though it reduces their business! Could you get your dentist to give you a fluoride rinse or supplement to take?
Good luck!
That’s a good idea, Melanie. I’m glad your research found the same conclusion. I’m sure I didn’t study it as much as you have. I think there’s sometimes a knee jerk reaction in the natural movement to say, “Chemicals bad,” even if we don’t know they are. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, given all of the things the government has initially said posed no risk only to find out years later, it really did.
It’s going to be hard to point the finger at one source for the decline of teeth. It’s probably a combination of the water and aging.
You’re probably right, Heather. On top of soft teeth to begin with.
Absolutely, there’s good things in treated water. It’s the stuff that causes cancer in adults and brain damage in children that I have a problem with.
Those are definite problems, Mat.
Yeah, those are some of the things that we read about in our water report each year. I’m sure that the good mostly outweighs the bad, but you have to ask yourself what you’re really getting out of the faucet when a dump (closed 10 years ago) and a water treatment plant are only a few miles apart.
We split the difference between bottled and tap and are looking to move in a couple of years.
My husband worked at a very large landfill in Kansa City for over 25 years, so I know the nasty things that can be in those and they don’t go away just because one is closed. 🙁 Good luck on getting that situation resolved.
Where I live here in Nebraska, with the water we have under the state, it is naturally fluoridated. It is very hard mineral water, good, and I haven’t been to a dentist in 25 yrs, (yikes). I hate dentist anyway. I use Arm & Hammer baking soda toothpaste and rinse with Toms of Maine mouth rinse. Sometimes, especially if I have had the flu or cold, I rinse my mouth with a little warm water, peroxide, and swish and rinse.
We probably have it in our well water, but we don’t drink it as it has yet to be tested. No dentists in 25 years? Wow. I wish I could go that long! 🙂
At a checkup with my dentist several years ago, he said that most dentists had seen a spike in cavities and dental problems when water filters and bottled water became more popular. Children were not getting fluoride through their drinking water and most dentists felt it was doing harm. My family “dental” history is much as yours and Dale’s. Dentures were an accepted part of life, at an early age. Fortunately, I’ve had good dental care as an adult, but my mouth is more porcelain and metal than bone and enamel due to not getting regular cleanings and fillings as a child. Have you thought about getting regular fluoride treatments, Kerri? Good luck with keeping your choppers healthy!
Thanks, Kathleen! I know the feeling having more porcelain and metal than bone and enamel. The dental tech last week said, “My, you’ve spent a lot of time in a dental chair in your life, haven’t you!?” Most of my work was done as a child and young adult, though. Not from irregular dentist visits, but from just naturally “soft teeth.”
I admit I have been wondering the same thing. My dentist does applications of fluoride from time to time, which is very different from drinking the chemical in the water. I like the idea from NoPotCooking about toothpaste with higher fluoride. Oh, and my kids grew up in France, where there was no fluoride in the water. 3 kids, different types of teeth. One has more cavities than the others.
My dentist does do a fluoride application when we go in for 6 month cleanings and check ups, which is very different from our dentist in the city who did not do them on adults. Go figure.
I think there was a recent government study that recommended that fluoride levels in public water be reduced. Not eliminated, but reduced. I don’t remember the details, but it said people were getting fluoride from enough other sources that they were concerned the amounts in water were too high. My dentist recently gave me a prescription toothpaste with higher fluoride than regular toothpaste, saying the ADA now recommends this if you have had one cavity.
I think you’re referring to the study that said that some children are getting too much, which discolors their teeth. Thanks for the info on the prescription toothpaste, I had no idea. I will have to talk to my dentist about this on Thursday when I get this cavity filled (and exposed nerve covered!)