Pediatric Dentistry – Possible Inadequacies
According to
The situation becomes especially disheartening when these pediatric dental visits result in fillings, root canals, extractions, or crowns. This view of dental health unfairly shunts the underprivileged and disenfranchised masses that constitute our beloved world. Are their children therefore destined to a life of rampant tooth decay? Not in the slightest! Let us examine why. Some of the points we will discuss are preventative dental visits and procedures, tooth brushing with fluoride toothpaste, and sugary drinks that cause tooth decay due to their local presence in the mouth.
It is mentioned many times in this article, with misguided self-righteousness:
“Everything we treat is preventable…. Prevention is the biggest thing.”
Verily this signifies one thing to the holistic practitioner and quite another beast to the conventional medical doctor or dentist. Here what is alluded to is frequent dental visits at an age of tenderness when life should not be so violated. A child, in his formative years, requires only a good nourishing diet and compassionate educated parents to grow and thrive into a healthy adult. Medical personnel are noticeably left out of this equation. To treat a child for innocuous tooth decay with invasive procedures is to invite complications into a simple life. In his enlightening book
“After [childhood] dental surgery with general anesthesia 23% of all children require further extractions and restorations, 52% have a relapse within 4-6 months, and 57% have new cavities within 6-24 months. The statistics show us that surgery under general anesthesia is largely ineffective in curing tooth decay. This is because it does not address the real cause, the nutrient imbalance in the child’s diet.”
The definition of prevention, in mainstream medical communities, has come to mean the use of one invasive procedure in lieu of another. This is medicine gone awry and decadent.
Another method of averting tooth decay purported by dentists is frequent tooth brushing with fluoride toothpaste, sometimes up to 4 times per day! Ok now the first thing I will mention is the highly toxic nature of fluoride. This is not some frivolous claim made by an eccentric hippie writer but established fact! In
“Did you know that most popular toothpastes contain enough fluoride to kill a small child within 2-4 hours? In addition to being one of the main ingredients in toothpaste as well as rat and cockroach poisons, sodium fluoride is also a key component in anesthetic, hypnotic, and psychiatric drugs and Sarin nerve gas! A 1990 study stated that fluoride has been shown to not reduce cavities and scientists are now linking fluoride to dental deformity, arthritis, allergic reactions and about 10, 000 unnecessary deaths each year from cancer.”
Regarding frequent tooth brushing, I would posit it is more a reflection of the need for superficially pleasing teeth as seen on film and TV than its true effect on dental health. The innate health of the body is not a reflection of how much we scrub, wash, or bathe. Rather superior nutrition, adequate water intake, and sufficient sleep are some of the things that will result in enduring health and resistance to disease. One can regard teeth in much the same way. A tooth that has a firm foundation and is made strong through diet will have the ability to withstand incredible hardships and abuse.
“Dentist Ralph Steinman discovered that our teeth’s ability to remineralize is based upon the regulating action of the largest salivary glands, the parotid glands. The parotid glands regulate the activity of nutrient-rich dentinal fluid. When the tooth fluid flow is reversed due to a signal from the parotid glands (as a result of poor diet or otherwise), food debris, saliva, and other matter are pulled into the tooth through dentinal tubules. When this happens over time, the pulp becomes inflamed and tooth decay spreads to the enamel.”
The error in regarding sugary drinks as a cause for tooth decay lies in a fundamental misunderstanding of the true cause of tooth degeneration. Teeth deteriorate due to an internal lack of nutrition. High blood sugar levels, often due to faulty diet, signal the body to extract phosphorus and calcium from the bones and teeth in order to achieve homeostasis once again. Over time this weakens the teeth until they begin to deteriorate and crumble of their own accord. This has little if anything to do with the presence of sweet drinks or food present in the mouth. Therefore conventional dental theory is partially correct in that sugary condiments result in cavities but not through the method that is universally accepted. I elaborate on this point in my recent article entitled Magical Toothpaste Too Good To Be True:
“If we were somehow able to dispose and rid ourselves of all ‘harmful’ bacteria, viruses, and fungi, our bodies would collapse into an amorphous state of chaos. The extent to which the symbiotic relationships exist to provide us with the breath of life is unfathomable and not to be tampered with, as anybody who has endured prolonged use of antibiotics can attest to.”
An amusing anecdote provided by
“I say that cleaning teeth has nothing to do with whether they decay or not. To cite an instance, some years ago a patient came into my office from 20 miles west. The old fellow had never used a toothbrush in his life. He had the dirtiest mouth I had ever seen. His teeth were thickly covered with tartar, scales, and caked food particles. Mr. G.P. was not in trouble when he came to see me. His wife persuaded him that he ought to have his teeth cleaned whether they needed it or not. When I cleared that lifetime accumulation of foreign matter off his teeth – a full day’s work – to my astonishment, I had uncovered as fine a set of teeth as I had run across in my 50 years of practice. He ate a lot of vegetables and raw fruit when he could get it. G. P. was also a heavy milk drinker. He told me he was particularly fond of buttermilk and clabber.”
Children must be given their due respect. Just because they are small and many times cannot speak for themselves doesn’t give parents or dentists the right to subject them to the horrors of root canals, fillings, or general anesthesia. To act in error out of ignorance regarding one’s own health is bad enough, to do so regarding one’s children is truly reprehensible and shameful! Parents carry with them the additional responsibility of caring for another life. This is not to be taken lightly.