I know heaps of people who don't use flouride, and their kids teeth aren't rotting out of their...

[Cutie Patootie]

...why are mine? I said that to our dentist today after a horrifying 2 hour appt. with ds(5.5yo) getting his teeth filled. They respect our decision not to use fluoridation, but they disagree. Dd(3.5) had her first appt. right after ds and she has one very bad cavity...that they can tell (she wouldn't let them xray, so we don't know if there are any hiding in between). It's just so disheartening. The kids drink raw milk, they take good vitamins and fish oil, they were on probiotics, they eat organic food and we floss and brush their teeth with xylitol(spry) toothpaste. I just don't know what to do to slow it down. Someone please tell me you use flouride and it doesn't make a difference, because I don't know what else to do at this point.

[AJP]

Analyses of the cities where water is fluoridated don't show a decrease in the rates of tooth decay. Even some official organizations have come out saying the fluoridation experiment is a failure (not the American Dental Assoc., I'm sure they'll hang on to the fluoride mantra to the bitter end, but I believe the Canadian Dental Assoc. did).

My kids have bad baby teeth, with what appears to be very weak enamel leading to lots of early decay. I've chosen to not use fluoride supplements (our water isn't fluoridated) and we don't use fluoride toothpaste (except my older son likes to use the tiny sample tubes they give out at the dentist when he goes for a checkup), because I don't think it's worth the risk to take it internally. I did allow fluoride varnish on my youngest son's teeth when it became apparent he had the same problem (enamel crumbling away), and it certainly didn't halt the process.

My husband has perfect teeth with very hard enamel, no decay ever. He did live in an area with fluoridated water for part of his childhood. However, he has two brothers, raised in the same house, drinking the same water, eating the same food, for the same amount of time, and one of them (the middle brother) has teeth very susceptible to decay. I doubt the fluoride had anything to do with my husband's teeth.

I know it's frustrating, especially knowing that fluoride isn't the answer and having to buck the system about that, yet not seeing any difference with other measures. It's not as simple as a lot of the 'alternative' people make it out to be, either. We eat a very nutrient-dense diet, basically following WAPF guidelines, and it hasn't fixed the problem. Heredity plays a factor, I believe - whether that heredity is actually encoded in the genes or not is debatable, but constitutional weaknesses and generationally-accumulated deficiencies resulting in intercepted heredity (interfering with what should be) can be passed from parent to child, even if the child's lifestyle and diet are an improvement on the parent's. I take comfort in the fact that my kids are otherwise very healthy, and my oldest son's adult teeth coming in have good enamel.

[northerngirl]

:

[FernG]

For my entire childhood, my siblings and I drank fluoridated water and used fluoride toothpaste. We did fluoride treatments at the dentist and used special fluoride rinses once a week for a while. My mom had our teeth sealed. We ate lots of refined grains, ate some whole grains, drank pasteurized milk, and ate seasonal farm-fresh produce.

I have had 1 cavity in my entire life.
My oldest brother and sister had many, many cavities in baby teeth and several in permanent molars. The dentist said that my brother had weak enamel and my sister had/has very deep crevices in her teeth.
My youngest brother has had about 3 cavities.

Based on my family's anecdotal experience, fluoride didn't seem to affect our cavities.

I'm so sorry that you are having a hard time. I hope that you find some way to slow the decay.