We agree about the need to prevent cavities, but how much more important is it to prevent cavities in children? Perhaps one of the most important groups to target with prevention are children with disabilities – those with compromised health or physical disabilities. Included in this group should be kids who are adopted and or who live in foster care. These children often have special social needs and should not have to endure additional burdens from painful cavities.
About half a million children in America live in foster care and a recent report indicates many of these children do not visit a doctor or dentist regularly. The error of the report is that it equates a lack of visiting to resultant health problems. The conclusion of the report is that health care providers must refer more children for dental and medical care. This will not end their problems – since no dentist in the world can stop dental disease.
Far more important, but less politically correct, is the idea of teaching families who welcome adopted or foster children into their homes, how to prevent cavities with xylitol. If they simply wipe erupting teeth with xylitol granules or eat a few delicious mints or gum each day at the end of meals, they can reduce the incidence of cavities by 98%.
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Turku sugar studies. V. Final report on the effect of sucrose, fructose and xylitol diets on the caries incidence in man. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/795260
My 5 year old has a large cavity on a back molar tooth, refuses to let dentist fill it. I have started giving him xylitol granules on a taespoon with water after eating anything during the day. I have ordered your recommended products and intend giving him
a pea size amount of the crest toothpaste morning and evening. Daily steriling of toothbrush. Could this stop the need for a filling
The idea of a child needing a filling should really be translated for parents. The dentist should tell parents that their child has a transmissible bacteria type in their mouth – this bacteria feeds on sugars – every kind of sugar – it may be from bad foods like sodas, pastries and cake but even good sugars in fruits and juices, whole grain breads and pasta – feed these plaque bacteria.
The answer is to use xylitol at the end of EVERY meal, snack or drink. This means limit snacking as much as possible and drinks must be drunk at the same time as snack foods – then STOP. Xylitol will prevent plaque bacteria from using the sugar in these meals and foods. It will make plaque gradually disappear over 6 months. This is the only way to get this infection under control.
Zellie’s are made specifically for this purpose – and unlike other brands we do not add any of the ingredients that mess up this plaque controlling effect. If you want plaque control – choose Zellie’s!