My dentist practically snickered at me when I refused flouride treatments for my kids several years ago. Last visit, they let us know that they no longer do flouride treatments due to health issues.
Love it!
DS's dentist has absolutely no problem when I decline for DS. I haven't used fluoridated toothpaste in decades. However, I recently re-remembered that Tacoma water is fluoridated, and it all hit me that when I am away from here, my energy levels go WAY up. So I started looking into it, and ultimately decided that I was going to lower my intake.
Tacoma has two unfluoridated wells and we go there around once a week to fill bottles. We are still cooking with the city water, but the drinking water is not fluoridated. My energy levels are MUCH higher now, and I feel so so so much better. My weight loss started again. I have read a link between thyroid problems and fluoride in the water systems, and I strongly feel that this could have been what was happening. At the same time, two young women I know who grew up here were diagnosed with thyroid cancer...
As a kid, they did swishing with fluoride in the school during my 2nd grade year. After doing it once, and being absolutely ill the rest of the day, my mom declined permission. So I sat while everyone swished, as did a friend of mine. He and I had lovely teeth and still do (I see my teeth every day, and his facebook pictures still show a nice smile), the only cavities I've had, in my molars, were likely caused by the high fevers I had while they were developing at around 4 years old (my dentists have always agreed on this).
At every dentist visit, my mom would say "no" to fluoride (but she never told US this), and the dentist would do the treatment anyway, and we could never go back to school after a dental appt b/c we were green and nauseated and had to lie down b/c of how ill we would feel. I have no idea why she kept going back to that dentist...
They first thought about fluoride in water when looking at a population with *natural* fluoride in their water source. At around the same time, industry had all of this waste...the waste was a form of fluoride. Put 1 and 1 together, the industry gets to get rid of its waste and get *paid* for it.
The advice of a dentist to let a child swallow the toothpaste is near malpractice. Fluoridated toothpaste is NOT OK to swallow! And any studies that DO show any benefits from industrial fluoride show it when it is applied to the teeth. NOT by ingesting it.
This site has a preponderance of info. Way too much, actually. So much that even I, a fervent UNsupporter of fluoridated anything, get overwhelmed and start just skimming and then just flip past it. But if you're going to read anything on it, go towards the bottom that starts with " LACK OF BENEFIT FROM FLUORIDE:" and read on.
Obviously, I wouldn't do the drops, and would just be vigilant in dental care. If there are dental problems in the family, know that these things can be genetic (like my son, his father, and grandfather all have/had similar problems, but they are watering down as other genes are introduced to the next generation). Brush with non-fluoridated toothpaste, keep the mouth nice and clean, and that's pretty much the absolute best we can all do!
