Flouridation for home well water?

[Jeff Wisnia]

A friend with a home on a private way in Weston, Massachusetts gets his domestic water supply from his own well.

He commented to me that his small kids seem to get an unusual number of dental cavities and thinks it might have something to do with a lack of flouride in their water supply.

I asked him about adding flouride to his well water and he said he'd tried to Google up flouride adding systems for home well water and didn't spot anything helpful.

Is the addition of flouride to home well water something for which practical equipment and supplies are readily available, or is he better off forgetting about doing that and using other ways to help protect his kid's teeth from decay?

Thanks guys,

Jeff

[stuart]

[NYSCOF]

I wouldn't fool around with it. Fluoride is toxic in doses just a little over what dentists consider optimal.

Besides new scientific evidence show that fluoride's beneficial effects are > A friend with a home on a private way in Weston, Massachusetts gets his

[Jeff Wisnia]

Thanks.

I said substantially the same things to him myself.

But, my curiousity was aroused because I'd never heard anything about automatic fluorine adding systems, but I do know that automatic chlorination systems are a common accessory on home well systems in some regions.

Jeff

[_]

Dentures will solve the problem.....

[HeyBub]

You can buy tablets to add to drinking and cooking water - like 1 table per gallon jug.

[JA]

See

The specifics are for Ottawa, but you'll get the general idea on options.

[Doug Kanter]

He will never be able to determine the volume of water in his well at any given time, especially as the levels vary with the season. How does he expect to determine the correct concentration of fluoride? Tell him to use toothpaste with fluoride, and ask the kids' dentist to apply the stuff at regular hygiene visits.

Before going to all this trouble, though, he should write down everything the kids eat and drink for a week (INCLUDING THE TIME OF DAY FOR EACH ITEM), and if the list doesn't answer his questions about cavities, take it to someone with a clue. Kids don't get cavities simply because there's no fluoride in the water.

When the kids were little, did the parents let them wander around all day with bottles of juice?

[Chris Lewis]

According to Jeff Wisnia :

There probably are automatic fluoride adding machines, but not for residential situations.

As far as I know, "they" (govt. health offices, dental associations etc) recommend using fluoride mouthwashes if your well water is low.

There's a danger of having too much fluoride - it'll damage tooth enamel quite severely.

Armed with a fluoride test, you should consult a dentist or a local govt. health office. If I recall correctly, if you're below 1PPM fluoride, they'll recommend a periodic (perhaps only once a week) with a high fluoride mouthwash to compensate.

[David Martel]

Jeff,

Many toothpastes if not all contain fluoride Ingredients are listed on the container. Your friend is not focusing on the problem.

Dave M.

[Doug Kanter]

The interesting thing is that there's very little ***VALID*** research to indicate that fluoride works. That's another subject, though. If you want to pursue it, be sure to review the meaning of "valid research" before you touch the keyboard. :-)

[Doug Miller]

Years ago, when my wife and I moved from the city (fluoridated water) to a rural property with a well, I asked my dentist about that. He said that home fluoridation equipment is available, but it's *very* expensive and not needed as long as you have regular dental care, including fluoride treatments, and brush your teeth at least daily with a fluoride toothpaste.

IMO, if your friend wants an explanation of his kids' cavities, he should look first at the foods and drinks they are consuming. Even if they are

*not* drinking sugared soda pop, that doesn't mean they aren't harming their teeth. Things like Hi-C and Juicy Juice are murder on teeth: high in sugar and high in acid. Even apple juice isn't that great for teeth. And let's not even get started on snack foods. Kids today eat between meals a *lot* more than when we were young. And most of what they're eating is garbage.

[Art]

When I was getting my MBA I read a case study of a company trying to make such a device. It was a catastrophic waste of money. It didn't work and they never even considered the need for FDA approval.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Train kids to eat healthy. No junk foods or fugary pops, etc. Tooth paste(use no sugar one) has enough of it already and basically it is poison. Tony

[Goedjn]

My impression was that the worst part of soda wasn't the sugar, but the carbolic acid. which means that even sugar-free soda will eat your teeth.

I also believe that the "damage" caused by too much flouride is cosmetic, not structural, mostly discoloration and bumps, in the range between 2 and 10 times the recommended dosages.

--Goedjn

[Chris Lewis]

According to Doug Kanter :

This is useful as an introduction to the fluoride controversy:

This link Shows 1353 references to research touching on fluoride dental prophylaxis, and all of the ones I quickly scanned indicate that fluoride "works".

Somehow, I don't think that counts as "very little".

[Doug Kanter]

The existence of 1353 search results is meaningless. Did you notice that very few of those results were directly related to the subject at hand?

[Doug Miller]

Nope. Carbolic acid is a very weak acid. Sugar, on the other hand, feeds bacteria which attack the enamel.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

[Chris Lewis]

According to Doug Kanter :

I noticed the opposite: that almost all of the handful I checked within the first page or two _did_ directly relate. Comparisons with/without fluoride, many compensating for all of the other factors (diet/environment etc).