How to Reduce the Number of Cavities at Your Next Dental Checkup
by Guest blogger, Denise Burns, Burns Best Farm
I was reading this week in the Wall Street Journal an article about the “dismaying comeback” of cavities in children in recent years. The 1970’s and 80’s saw a steady decrease in childhood cavities due to widespread water fluoridation and advances in treatment and prevention. The lowest point was in the mid-1990’s when 24% of young children had cavities and the numbers have been climbing ever since. This “official” data stands in stark contrast to my family’s experience at the pediatric dentist.
After listening to Sally Fallon Morell detail Dr. Weston A. Price’s research at the recent Wise Traditions Conference, I was very interested in what kind of diagnosis our own three sons would receive at their scheduled check-up the week of Thanksgiving. For our youngest son, this was his first dentist visit ever. So I was braced for bad news, at least from one of the older boys who I suspect is a casual brusher. 😉
What a wonderful surprise I received when all the x-rays and cleaning were complete: no cavities!
About 18 months ago, the two older boys each had at least one cavity, with the casual brusher coming in with two (molars in both cases). I was worried: should I buy a fluoride rinse since we left the fluoridated water source when we moved from the suburbs to the farm and started to use well water?
I did not, in the end, get the rinse. I continued giving them real raw milk to drink 3 times a day with every meal, and I cut way back on their access to fruit juice. I had started serving raw milk in November 2007, so they had only been drinking it for about 4 months when the cavities were first found.
I believe that 2 years of drinking real raw milk has worked to fortify the enamel on their teeth, saving us loads of money on fillings and saving them the pain and anxiety of dental work. I can point to other areas of my children’s health that I know have improved since we started drinking raw milk, but this dental visit is so tangible that it’s very hard to pin on anything other than raw milk!
Denise Burns is a farmer’s wife, mom to four kids, and a brand new Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) Chapter Leader for the Chattanooga, TN area. She blogs on the family farm website, Burnsbestfarm.com.
Have you had success improving your children’s health with nutrition or home remedies? Please send us your blog post to kim.hartke at gmail.com or comment below for our Natural Cures Tuesday blog carnival.
Kimberly Hartke kicks off this weeks carnival with the Children’s Health Index from the Weston A. Price Foundation website, a wealth of information for moms and dads!
Local Nourishment says, Stop Childhood Obesity with Whole Milk
You’re Next!
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Thanks for this post. I just took my kids for their checkup and my youngest has 9 cavities, one between each tooth on top, I know at 5 he isn’t the best brusher, but my hubby helps him (although I guess he hadn’t been helping him before this last visit although I asked him to??). He is my worst eater as he likes to eat carbs and we try to limit him and get him to eat more protein. I know he must have gut dysbiosis and we are planning to do the gaps diet (slow phase in probably full on in the spring). However, he is super picky eater and also can’t have dairy. My daughter had a good check up and does drink raw milk.
What else can you do to help their teeth if they can’t have dairy?
I still can’t believe he had 9 cavities (we don’t do flouride either) and my other son who can’t have dairy had 4 cavities.
HI…I know this is an older pot, but I have just begun my journey for info I found out today while at the dentist with my 5 year old daughter. They say she has 4 cavities…one being large and requiring a stainless steel cap. Okay, we are a conscious family for sure so of course I’m NOT okay with this. Have been looking for a Weston Price dentist nearby but not successful yet. We are a very healthy family eating organics, no processed food, sugars,etc. Lots of fruits and veggis (hmm could fruits contribute?). No fruit juice, sodas, etc. We are pretty clean. So a little confused. One thing my daughter does not enjoy is milk but we order raw cheese, etc from an organic farm. ANY IDEAS on what we can do to change this. Maybe cod liver oil?? Thanks very much for any insight! Peace and Wellness, Cindy
Lisa - Cod liver oil is a great way to promote dental health in children, because their bodies need so much vitamin A and D. Lots of saturated fat is important, too, because it helps the body properly utilize proteins (important if your children don’t want to eat a lot of protein). Bone broth is also an excellent source of calcium if you can’t drink milk, and the gelatin in broth is a protein-sparer as well, so it helps if you need to get by on less protein.
When we first started focusing on nourishing foods about 1 year ago, my daughter had a small cavity in one of her molars. We had also had one cavity drilled in her younger brother’s tooth (which was a miserable experience) and I did NOT want to go through that again. I had read about cavities disappearing or hardening on the Weston A. Price diet, and sure enough, my daughter (and son) are both cavity-free today.
Also, both of my kids had a mysterious growth spurt right after we started them on nourishing foods. 🙂
.-= Elizabeth Walling´s last blog ..My Version of Homemade Raw Milk Kefir =-.
I, too, have noticed improved dental health in my children since making the switch to real raw milk. My middle child had already had two cavities in her baby teeth, . Since starting the raw milk, two years ago I think, she has not had one cavity. My youngest was a finger sucker — the dentist assured me that she would need orthodontics due to the constant finger sucking. Her front teeth were bowed way out. When we got diligent about breaking her of the habit, her bite was normal within one month. My kids had check-ups about a month ago and we received lavish praise for their dental health. The dentist had no clue that my youngest had been a finger-sucker. He could not tell by looking. All three kids have straight teeth, strong teeth, and great spacing. We drink 4 gallons of real raw milk every week.
Lisa, in addition to Elizabeth’s CLO recommendation, how about trying butter oil? As I recall from Dr. Price’s book, he believed they had a special synergy when taken together.
.-= Melissa @CelluliteInvestigation´s last blog ..Is Skin Brushing As Effective On Wet Skin As Dry Skin? =-.
Hi!
Great post! I am glad to hear other children are benefiting from Raw Milk. My son has a full set of straight teeth that are beautiful and he is an avid raw milk drinker He was even on the NT raw milk baby formula from birth because i lost my breast milk due to c-section trauma.
I wanted to address the fluoride issue though… fluoride does not help teeth at all and in fact it causes many health problems including disrupting thyroid function. It’s GOOD that the fluoride water was left behind and I’d make sure toothpastes and rinses are all fluoride free!
Other comments have some great suggestions including high vitamin CLO, limiting sugar and juices and also plenty of raw grass-fed butter in the diet.
Here’s to your good health and that of your children!!
Dawn
Denise,
Weston Price was very skeptical of fluoride in his book although the practice of putting it in water was not yet a reality at the time. Also please see the topic “fluoride” on the Weston Price web site.
Do you k now that most of the counties in the world do not fluoridate their water and have low rates of dental decay?
Your blanket statement that fluroide was responsible for the reduction in cavities in the 70’s and ’80’s is not correct but an assumption which was generally promoted by the government. Reviews of the one major government study which found that fluoride prevented tooth decay and launched the fluoride campaign, found the results were misinterpreted in favor of fluoride. The major researcher later recanted in court that he fudged his results in favor of the government position.
Do you know, that poor children living in cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which were fluoridated in the 1950’s and continue to be fluoridated, have continuously had some of the highest rates of cavities in the country?
Fluoride was the governmental panacea for the poor, but those children continue to have the highest cavity rates of all groups
Two Harvard researchers were fired after publishing findings that fluoride caused hyperactivity, lower IQ’s, as well as osteosarcoma - a rare cancer -in boys.
Up until 1940 fluoride was considered a poison by the medical and dental profession. But then the atomic age arrived, producing huge amounts of fluoride toxic waste. Soon fluoride was the miracle for tooth decay in children.
But the fluoride put into water is not the natural form found in nature but the toxic byproduct of aluminum, steel, and glass production. These powerful industries, instead of paying huge sums to put their wastes into land fills, are paid for these toxins, which are put into our water supplies.
The fluoride found in tooth paste is sodium fluoride, another toxic waste product, considered a drug by the FDA, but liberally dispensed to the public in toothpaste without a prescription. Sodium fluoride, which was in use in the 1930’s as rate poison, was not required by the FDA to undergo any new drug application process.
There is much more. Thank goodness for raw milk.
Sylvia Onusic
we have two kids: 19 and almost 16. i made sure they had great nutrition, but i wasn’t a purist. while we ate mostly a natural foods diet, organic, we did eat the fast food and junk stuff sometimes. i had sooooooo many cavities. my kids have had NONE. what did we do besides good nutrition?
basically, almost no sugar in the house. this included soda, white sugar, etc. at home it was healthy food time. junk was for (sometimes) out in public. we didn’t eat cookies, etc. either. i hate baking treats.
i did NOT have my kids brush much until they started wanting too. literally, when they were 7 ish or so. before this, it was once every few days. why? i am a bit skeptical about the safety of brushing all the time. many years later, i proved this myself by having tooth damage from too much brushing. however, with our diets, their teeth were kept clean by the food they eat (like apples).
extended nursing.
and, honestly, no dentists until they were teenagers. why? i have had too many over-zealous ones that i believe drilled for the dollar when it wasn’t needed.
the two dentists they have seen are amazed by my kids fabulous teeth. no regrets. it wasn’t deliberate lack of care. it was deliberately protecting them nutritionally, and by not over-tending to them.
Hi Sylvia:
I did know that Dr. Price was not a fan of fluoride. In the opening paragraph, I should have been more clear that I was pulling those stats from the WSJ article. I thought I included a link to the article (it ran last week) when I sent the post to Kimberly, but apparently I left it out by mistake.
Here is the link in case you want to read the rest of the piece: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704825504574582063729991776.html
It was a fascinating article b/c it touched on a bacteria researchers have observed attacking the enamel. I read it thru the lens of WAP and just shook my head that so many smart people could be that misguided!
I was raised on the same well water my kids are now drinking and I had a terrible problem with cavities as a child, despite very good dental hygiene and no sugary snacks/drinks. But, no raw milk or no cod liver oil for me. either I always thought my dental issues stemmed from the lack of fluoridation until I found Dr. Price. Now I know better! I am providing both the FCLO and real milk to all my kids and we are reaping the benefits.
Thanks for your comment; I am always learning!
.-= Denise´s last blog ..Homemade Sauerkraut and Acetic Acid: New News =-.
Well, I guess I can relate a lot with your story. My youngest son David is such a chocolate addict. Since he is into sports, he burns calories therefore he also eats a lot. The problem is, since he’s just 8 (yes, quite older than your son) he is not a fan of brushing. He sleeps at night, eating a lot form dinner without brushing. No wonder when we went in a (Nashua) dental clinic, the dentist discovered a lot of tooth decay. I’m really running out of ways to get him into brushing. I’m just thankful to have seen your blog, hope I can also work on my son’s cavities.
I am definitely going to look more into the real raw milk you mentioned. I’m not familiar with this really, but I know I had a cavity at the dentist and it’s got me very self-conscious lately.
Very interesting post! I didn’t know that raw milk could strengthen tooth enamel. I’ll have to look into this and maybe make a change in my dairy selection.
Its interesting to know how diet can help support teeth. I have a post which explains the importance of brushing teeth to prevent disease.> http://myhealth-your-health.blogspot.com/search?q=teeth
Quite interesting publish! I’ll need to consider this and perhaps make a general change in my dairy selection.
Thank you for this publish. I’m glad to listen to other youngsters are reaping helpful benefits from Raw Milk. I’m certainly likely to look more in to the real raw milk you pointed out.