Hi Dr. Ellie,
I am married to my wife and have four young children, two boys aged 10 and 7 and two girls aged 3 and 4 months.
Firstly thank you for all your great work in the area of preventative dental care which is clear from your very good website. We are living in Cork, Ireland we order a lot of products online from the States which are often fedexed to us.
Can we order online from your website for delivery to us here in Cork, Ireland. We would love to read your book and also get your childrens book also.
I think our teeth are in generally good health. I am 41 and one concern I have is slightly. receding gums from what I think has been years of over vigorous brushing. My wife is actually getting dental work done over the last while, namely the removal of several amalgam mercury/silver fillings with friendlier composite replacements. This is a preventative measure on her part given a lot of negative stuff she has come across relating to mercury from amalgams.
Another issue we had, or mistake we made as parents, was that we gave our two boys quite a bit of buffered Vitamin C to drink when they were younger. We started to do this when our second boy was about 4 cos he seemed to be picking up a lot of colds and tummy bugs. However in hindsight these drinks were quite acidic on their teeth and now we regret ever doing it.
Both the boys teeth seem good and fine now they have no cavities they have had fissure seals fitted to their back molars. Our younger boy did seem to suffer from enamel erosion on his baby teeth but fortunately his permanent ones look good we think the Vit C drinks caused this cos they very rarely got fizzy sweet drinks
So that is a little about ourselves. We as parents would really like to avail of your products both for ourselves and our children we already use xylitol almost exclusively as our sweetener.
Any feedback you can give would be very welcome and best of all would be that we can go and order (hopefully the shipping costs are not hugely expensive we are used to paying for orders from the U.S.) online from your website.
So thank you again for all your great work in this area as is often said ‘prevention is the best cure’.
Yours sincerely,
M
Cork, Ireland.
Hi M,
Thanks so much for your message I am delighted to meet you and learn about your family.
I hope we can help you with the products that you need the mints and gum are easy to ship it is simply liquids that create weight problems.
I will ask my Operations Manager Jeanne Walton to guide you through this and help keep the shipping costs down for you. We want to develop relationships in Europe perhaps we will be in stores in Ireland one day in the future!
Closys is a wonderful mouth rinse to protect your gums from recession and you should be able to find it under the name Retardex (if you have access to Boots the chemist.)
I think you would enjoy my book simply because it explains about how these mouth rinses work and this can help you find substitutes if necessary. We are here to help you with any information or products you need.
I have copied Jeanne on this e-mail and she will probably get back to you with approximate shipping costs if you let her know what you would like to order. We look forward to a long and happy relationship with you.
People will be hearing more and more about the impact of dental health on general health something long overdue. So glad you found our website feel free to keep in touch if we can help with more information.
With best wishes for a happy summer to you and your family,
Ellie
Ellie Phillips DDS
Dental Health for Everyone!
author, Kiss Your Dentist Goodbye
26, Corporate Woods, Rochester NY 14623
Dear Ellie,
Thank you very much for your reply will be in touch.
Best regards,
M
Sorry Dr. Ellie I meant to ask you to briefly explain what are the pros and cons involved in deciding to have fissure sealants put on my two boys teeth (they have already had some put on 4 each on first molars) we had some regrets after this as we were not sure of the pros and cons
We would still like to know for our two daughters the boys had no cavities and no sign of cavities so from what I think I know it seems as if they could have done without these
Thank you again,
M
P.S Got the Retardex in Boots now trying to see if we can get ACT or something like it (e.g. Colgate Fluriguard non-alcohol) have been using granular Xylitol as sweetener for some time now (was unaware of it’s antifungal properties) but gum and Mints would be great to get also
Hi M,
Thanks for your very relevant question.
I used to lecture on sealants to General Dentists as Faculty at the University of Rochester.
In 2001 at the a National Institute of Health symposium I asked an FDA representative when and how sealants came to be FDA approved. The reply was that they were “grandfathered ” into use.
Bisphemol A
I began research of my own into sealants during the early 2000s when I started to write my book.
European and Japanese researchers were concerned about Bisphemol A in sealants this is a compound that leaches out of plastic materials.
US dental organizations answered that if any Bisphemol A leached out of sealants it was too small to be any problem. From my reading it appeared that smaller amounts actually posed the greatest problems which of course seems counter-intuitive.
A few years later there was a big whop-la over baby bottles and Bisphemol A. This year CBS did a documentary that discussed sealants and their potential toxicity. Until this time I never heard much concern in the dental community about white filling materials and this problem.
Now for the first time companies are advertising sealants that are “free of Bisphemol A”.
Other factors to consider
If we put Bisphemol A concerns apart from our discussion there are still some other facts to consider. Once a sealant has been placed it needs constant supervision since a chipped sealant may cause food or bacteria to become stuck under the sealant. There is research to show that regular use of xylitol for two years before a tooth erupts will give at least the same protection ( maybe more) than a sealant. Xylitol does this by allowing healthy bacteria to block up the grooves in the tooth surface and offer natural protection from cavities – not plastic!
Who should have sealants?
I think there is a place for sealants ( high risk, difficult diet control, special needs situations)
I would rarely suggest them for cavity free children at low risk.
I prefer to have the child on regular xylitol protection plus the useful cavity reversing effects of rinsing with ACT rinse twice a day. This prevention offers the child long term protection by creating a balanced oral ecology and also strengthening teeth so the child’s teeth will be protected even if the child is later unable to access dental care for some reason.
Downside of Sealants
They need constant supervision ( as mentioned above) Sealants often chip off if the tooth is not well dried during application. Sealants do nothing to rid the mouth of cavity forming bacteria whereas xylitol does. If you have sealants and no xylitol it is possible for your child to experience ten or more cavities in later teen years when the full number of permanent teeth have erupted and developed “contact points” where they touch together. Use of xylitol and ACT would have created a healthy mouth and prevented this from happening.
I sealed my now 22 year old child’s first molars ( because I believed it was the right thing to do).
I never sealed any of her other teeth , and I did not seal my youngest child’s teeth ever.
Hope this helps you to understand sealants a little better, For some more reading go to my blog ( link from the website) then search under Bisphemol A June 30 2010 entry is about sealants and a dentist who was confused.
Sincerely,
Ellie
Ellie Phillips DDS
Dental Health for Everyone!
author, Kiss Your Dentist Goodbye
26, Corporate Woods, Rochester NY 14623
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Tags: hygiene, oral health