Fluoride, bellyaches, food, and concentration....

Not me, of course, but their may turn out to be quite a difference between chewing and swallowing a tablet, and frequent drinks of water. I'm not sure I would care for getting my daily intake of chlorinated water in one concentrated tablet.

It isn't chlorine but fluoride but I get your drift, roger.

It kind of made me crazy when I thought of my little friend having a bellyache every day because I wanted him to take the fluoride at school.

I am a believer in fluoride. I have heard how rotten teeth lead to rotten health.

And I'm a beliver in food.

I'm going to try to do some serious research on this.

I was hoping that someone else might have made this connection and had done some looking that could set me on the right path.

I know that number one has to be:

Find out what dosage the tablets given at school are.

Rotten teeth definitely lead to rotten health. IMO dentistry is one of the key factors in our increased life expectancies.



But can't he just brush with flouride toothpaste? I'm curious as to the plan your dentist developed.

And too much flouride can make teeth brittle and/or discolored. Although since you've consulted with an actual dentist, this information is probably moot.

I am not sure but I don't think those tabs were meant to be swallowed. I remember having them as a kid and they taste awful.

Poor Mo.

The dentist prescribed a fluoride tablet that you take like a vitamin along with a fluoride rinse (he recommened one called Act) that Mo can swish and spit at home.

He said calcium can interfere with the benefits of fluoride so you should never take it with milk. (That might be what causes some of the problems. I know Mo has milk with lunch at school.)

I've just started investigating so I'm not sure what's what yet.

He's reporting bellyaches that keep him from eating lunch. He's the one that connected it to the fluoride which the dentist confirmed can be a problem.

Mo's teacher reports problems with his attention and concentration. I know gets a little nutty when he's hungry.

After talking to the dentist it clicked that maybe the bellyache and not eating were part of the problem with not paying attention.

Sounds like you have a good and perceptive dentist.

I haven't heard much of this and fortunately for us we don't have the same issues. Hopefully the dentist's suggestions work. The dentist is the medical expert here - much more so than the school. The school is simply trying a cookie cutter mold for each child and as anyone with common sense should know there is no cookie cutter mold for each and every child.

This might tie in with the fact that Mo's anti-intellectual streak surfaced when he started school.

Does his teacher see a difference in his daily behavior before and after flouride?

Have I mentioned my niece with the corn starch allergy? Corn products make her hyperactive. And you wouldn't believe how much corn starch is in corn syrup... which is in nearly everything.

She's a completely different kid after her mom took corn starch out of her diet.

The kids are on spring break right now so I haven't had a chance to talk with his teacher.

Mo says they take fluoride each morning but I volunteer one day a week and I haven't seen them take it. I'm usually out in the hallway reading with individual kids though so it could be that I just miss it.

The dentist said that some kids/people just don't tolerate it well. He took Mo's complaints much more seriously than I did which made me feel like a total doofus but at least put me in a position to ask some questions.

The bellyache complaint is pretty new but Mo has complained about the fluoride treatments for some time. I've kept urging him to take it because I know how important a good teeth are.

Amazingly I cannot find the dosage and administration or anything else about the school systems fluoride program other than that they have one.

Come Monday I'll have a list of questions needing immediate answers!

Boomer, some bottled water comes with added flouride. Dunno how accessible these bottles are or if you're willing to buy water. But it may be a good alternative.

Boomer, I was curious what led you to they aye vote for flouride? My little one went through the whole tablet at school thingie and I about flipped because the size of the kids were so wide ranging but they were all being given the same dosage. Add to that they've recently started adding flouride to the water here and that there is never any telling if it's in the milk, sodas or juices kids get, well, it just all seemed a bit much.

In Stanley Kubrick's classic 1964 movie, Dr. Strangelove, the deranged General Jack D. Ripper thinks he knows a secret communist plot to destroy Americans from within. "A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice," he says ominously. He's referring to water fluoridation, "the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face."

At first I was smiling at dys post, but look at this article here...

http://www.consumerhealth.org/articles/display.cfm?ID=19990303222823

If you look at the teeth of some primitive tribes in Africa or South America,
you'll find that their teeth are impeccable with virtually no cavities at all.
They have no fluoride in their waters, they just don't eat sweets and
refined carbohydrates.

UNICEF warns also against additional fluoride intake

http://www.nofluoride.com/Unicef_fluor.htm

It is really easy to find lots of horror stories about fluoridated water on the internet but they never mention the benefits of it. And there are lots of benefits to fluoridated water.

I've told this story before but I'll tell it here again:

When I first moved to Oregon and went to my first dental cleaning the first thing the dentist asked was "You didn't grow up here, did you?" When I asked how he could tell it was because I still had all my teeth. I was in my early 30s -- not the age you think people would be losing their teeth but in Oregon it is rare for a dentist to see someone in their 30s whose teeth aren't falling out of their mouths.

I grew up drinking fluoridated water and I benefit from that. If you look into the history of fluoridation you will find some interesting facts about how it occurs naturally in a lot of water and that is how they discovered the benefits it carries.

If it weren't for Mo's bellyaches and the dentists confirmation that some people do have a sensitivity to ingested fluoride I would never have given it a second thought.

I sent an email to Mo's teacher today asking for some information about the program and about Mo's behavior and letting her know what thoughts I was chasing. I probably won't hear back until Monday when school resumes but I'll be sure to let you all know what she has to say.

As to bottled water. I had a bit of a rethink on that not long ago when I realized how many plastic bottles I was throwing into the recycling bin each week so I went out and bought a water filter for my tap. The lesser of two evils, I suppose.....

"Fatal if swallowed". Sounds like kind of a negative, to me.

But it says that on every tube of toothpaste, roger.

For every article a person can find about the horrors of fluoride there are more about it's benefits.

Well, boomer, if the disadvantages outweigh the benefits, and the child gets sick from it, perhaps that would be an indication to stop it.

Ummmm.... I think that's what I said I was going to do.