What is Fluoride?
Fluoride is a mineral found in soil, various foods, water, some toothpastes and dental rinses. Fluoride can prevent tooth decay. It has a positive effect on dentition by making teeth more resistant to decay and cavity. Fluoride can also reverse tooth decay that has started; this can be achieved by direct contact between fluoride ions and teeth to strengthens and remineralize damaged enamel.
How do I know if my child is getting the appropriate amount of fluoride in their diet?
Fluoride is added to public drinking water to protect everybody from tooth decay. Community water fluoridation is a safe and effective way of preventing tooth decay. In my opinion this is the best way of receiving Fluoride consistently and at a low cost. Most provinces in Canada, participate in water fluoridation; Unfortunately Langley,BC and Surrey,BC water does not have enough levels of Flouride to prevent the teeth from cavities .Studies have shown that children drinking fluoridated water can expect to have up to 35% less tooth decay than those drinking non-fluoridated water. In British Columbia approximately 4.5% of the population drinks fluoridated water which is very low and this is one of the reasons that we see a lot of children and adults with multiple decays at early ages. So our recommendation in Aquarius dental is to
– Use Fluoride containing tooth paste for kids. child’s teeth should be brushed by an adult using a minimal amount (a portion the size of a grain of rice) of fluoridated toothpaste. This can achieve a balance between the benefits of fluoride and the risk of developing fluorosis.
– Using non-fluoride tooth paste and giving you kid a pill form of fluoride as a supplement. In my opinion Fluoride pill is the best way of protecting the teeth, because kids will get controlled levels of Fluoride from the pill even if they ingest the tooth paste while brushing (which is very common) and in this case the tooth paste is doesn’t have any fluoride.