Not So Crackpot-ty After All

I grew up in the wilds of Northern Ontario, on untreated well water. We used fluoridated toothpaste, but that was the extent of my fluoride ingestion.

My husband grew up in Philadelphia, on fluoridated water.

My son has never lived in a place with fluoridated water.

Only one family member has ever had a cavity. Can you guess who that might be?

No fluoride for us. Ever.

How things change. My 4 boys (ages 14 to 20) were born in Montreal where the city water wasn't fluoridated. I was very encouraged by my family doctor to give my oldest some kind of vitamin drops (triviflor?) to make sure he didn't get cavities. He was the only one who wasn't breasted for an extended amount of time and the only one who got those vitamins. Guess which kid had a ton of cavities in his baby teeth?

OK, so this tells me I should go with my gut more often (and thank heaven I did this time). I literally argued with our pediatritian when he prescribed flouride drops to our kids, telling him not to waste his time, as I wasn't gonna fill it. He kept saying his wife was a dentist and that together they are looking out for the welfare of the children in town. OK, so at least his heart was in the right place, BUT I never did (OK, one or two times, but my gut said STOP!!) administer those drops. I'm so glad I did not. But, now I need to go find out if our city water is flourinated...we just moved here and I'm not sure. Thanks for the reminder.

I think it's been known even longer than that, though possibly for higher levels of fluoride. Prevention magazine (which my mother sends me) recently had an article on the dangers of water fluoridation. Thought it was pretty gutsy of them, given their usual reporting. Part of it discussed brown-stained teeth caused by naturally occurring high fluoride levels in a few towns before water fluoridation became widespread--I think maybe around the turn of the century, even...

In fact, here's their timeline and article.

We're on non-fluoridated well water here, and I'm rather glad there's no added chlorine and fluoride in it, even if we do need to do something about the coliform bacteria that finds its way in.

I guess I don't have much of a choice unless I want to continuously be spending all of my money on bottled water. Our water naturally has tons of flouride in it. I run most of the drinking water thru a distiller, but it only makes a gallon at a time and takes a few hours to make.

I don't drink much water anyway. I prefer cokes. LOL!

But, I do have to mention this. My husband grew up on this water. and even though he has stained teeth, he has NEVER had a cavity. And it ain't from brushing his teeth all the time, because I have to remind him to do that. My SIL however has had cavities. The dentist thinks it was because the anti-venom she was given when she was rattlesnake bit as a toddler did something to the way her body makes enamal? something like that.

But I have only used distilled water on the babies. Since I never used formula, there was no harm there.

edited to add that I should mention that we have a well. When you are as far away from a town as we are, that's what you get. The water isn't the best tasting, so I do drink distilled, but cook with regular water from the tap. Not all the water around here tastes bad. My FIL's ranch has some of the coldest, best tasting water around. Not from a well, but from the windmills! There are stock tanks set up under the windmills for the cattle. In the summer time, we go swimming in them. Yeehaw! LOL! I don't know what the floride level would be in them.

In SW Missouri the rural school I went to had all the kids do "flouride" rinses once a week. My not-so-crackpot-ty mother opted me out because she thought it unecessary since I was getting flouride from toothpaste. I was the only kid who was opted out. Then they lost the note that said I didn't have to take the flouride and started making me take it. Bleh.

It's not been until they added sugar to toothpaste (what's up with that?) and flouride to water that we see increases in cavities.

There's a big difference between naturally occuring flouride and the flouride used to treat water which is the waste by-products of industry.

The chemicals used for [drinking water] fluoridation are not high purity, pharmaceutical quality products. Rather they are byproducts of aluminum and fertilizer manufacturing and contain a high concentration of toxins and heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and chromium.
...
The lethal dose of artificial flouride is 50 times smaller than naturally occuring fluoride.
...
The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology has classified fluoride as an unapproved dental medicament due to its high toxicity.

Four major studies involving 480,000 children (US, 39,000; Japan, 22,000; India, 400,000; Tucson, 29,000) comparing fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas showed no significant difference in decay rates. Proven is that a higher intake of fluoride will actually cause MORE cavities, especially for children with low dietary calcium intake.

from Dangers of Flouride

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally

I hope that my first ever post here does not cause a riot.. In 35+ years in dentistry I have seen infinitely more dental damage from sugar than fluoride. That is not to say that you MUST have fluoride for good teeth but if you eat anything with sugar in it (that includes honey and all the other variations of sweetness, I'm afraid)and do not effectively clean your teeth on a regular basis (that means floss,too), you WILL likely get cavities.

I have never encountered anyone with staining, mottling or pitted enamel who drank fluoridated water in the amount recommended by the American Dental Association, which is 1 part fluoride per 1 million parts of water. Those side effects that one sees come from drinking naturally fluoridated water with much higher content of fluoride. There can be other side effects from that high a concentration also.

In an effort to not rant at y'all, just let me say that there is a lot of information out there. Be very careful to check your source before you get too much invested in what it says. I know that this is an ongoing discussion.. like years!

To me water fluoridation is right up there with vaccinations. I'm for them and my kids were both vaccinated and fluoridated. The one who left home and took up the Lucky Charms, no floss diet now has had fillings. The one who still flosses and eats healthily had never had a cavity and is 26.

That's enough for now..........The grumpy one

Flouridation of water is bad because the actual flouride that water treatment places use is called aluminum flouride which is a by product from the processing of aluminum for cans and what not. The flouride used in toothpaste is sodium flouride. The metal companies decided to sell the aluminum by product and that is how the city waters ended up with it. Isn't it nice that big companies are watching out for us by selling that to our water treatment plants. Actually, they are watching out for themselves as it turns out the aluminum flouride is not as effective as sodium flouride.
GayHomemaker