Is there a dentist / dental nurse in the house????

[kd73]

Teeth are not particularly strong or great, sadly.

Drank loads of milk, until reaching 2nd trimester, when I went off milk big time.

At 15 wks pg I developed a terrible toothache, went to the dentist, who replaced a filling. However, as this didn't have any real effect, ended up having the tooth removed by emergency dentist the following day

Literally 2 wks later, I broke another tooth and dentist filled it in

Went out and bought a pro-repair toothpaste to strenthen the enamel. Began drinking lots of milk - despite it tasting nasty!

DP went to dentist who was appalled that his gums were in a shocking condition and it appeared our new toothpaste did not contain floride!

Replaced toothpaste with Colgate Sensitive which we have been using for approx 1 month.

Now at 32 wks prg the gum has receded on one side and I think the dentin is exposed between the tooth enamel and gum.

I brush twice daily but admit to have poor flossing habits...

Have now switched toothpaste again to Aquafresh but is the damage permanent? What toothpaste can be recommended? Is this due to pregnancy? Any advice would be welcome as I am very worried ...

baby is taking massive amounts of calcium and magnesium from you at the moment which is aprtly why dental stuff (up to a point) is free when pregnant.

fluride is not as important in toothpaste as dentists make out. many areas have fluride in the water and you get more than enough from that. in areas that don't have fluride in the water you may still get some but maybe not enough. fluride does not help the gums, it only strengthens the enamel but makes it more brittle at the same time. fluride has also been shown to interfere with certain hormones like thyroxine and hypothryoidic people should avoid fluride if possible. unless you have other problems, your oral probs are most likely down to pregnancy.

have you had any blood pressure problems?

Thanks Misi,

No problems with blood pressure (touch wood) just massive issues with blardy teeth!!!!!!!

I changed to a non flouride toothpaste - at my next check up, my teeth had all gone soft and my dentist guessed why. he said he was seeing more peoples teeth going softer because they were switching to non flouride toothpaste. (we don't have flouride in the water where we live) he said if I switch back hopefully it will resolve itself, next check up all was fine. He said dentists don't recommend flouride for nothing.

it's only Birmingham area in England that has flouride in the water, IIRC. You are pretty unlikely to get flouride from your water in this country.

'people should avoid flouride if possible' - I totally disagree. If you're going to avoid all sugars as well, you might get away with it, but how likely is that?

captain, fluride is in more water than just birmingham!! one of the reasons underactive thyroid conditions are exploding in this country is due to excessice intake of fluride. and if you read my post captain, I said thyroidic people should avoid fluride if possible, not people in general, there is a vast difference as hypothyroidic people can be severely affected by excess fluride, please read correctly before making comments???
studies have shown that carte blanche reccommendations of fluride are WRONG. read up on the latest research. too much fluride actually makes teeth worse as it makes the enamel very brittle and can cause teeth to crumble. fluride is a recent introduction, if your diet contains enough magnesium, calcium and a few other minerals, enamel will be strong enough without fluride. fluride is a modern lazy mans way to teeth strength (and brittleness) like anti biotics were touted as the biggest breakthrough in health, simply not true. excess fluride should also be avoided in pregnancy as excessive fluride intake by mum has been linked with attention deficit disorder in kids. there is also a study that suggests women taking excessive fluride during lactation had decreased bone mineral densities whereas those fluride free kept their BMD levels.

anyway kd73, folic acid is good for gum health. studies show that folic acid mouth washes improve gum health no end but I have struggled to find a folic acid based mouth wash in britain (so I made my own for my ex!!) is this your first baby? if not, did you have any problems with previous pregnancies? I am aiming for something here but want you to tell me without me prompting you!!

Hi Misi.

This is 1st baby although not 1st pregnancy, prv 2 prg ended in miscarriage early on

kd sorry to hear about the MC's. my sister has had 2 although she has 5 healthy brats kiddies now!! when you go for your next check up, can you ask if they can do a blood pH test

Blood pH test? Midwife? GP? Why????

Do I need to be worried?

no need to be worried, its just to test your acid/alkaline status. as I said in my first post, baby will be taking massive amounts of calcium and magnesium from you at the moment. these 2 minerals are 2 important pH buffers that regulate your body acid/alkaline level. this could be the case with you given the condition of your teeth that your OP was about. a deficiency will cause you to become slightly acidic (as baby will be slightly alkaline due to the absorption of your minerals, this alkaline state in baby is what gives babies that new baby sweet smell). this acidic you, alkaline baby is completely normal, just want to check how acidic you are as being too acidic will not be helping your teeth.

forgot to add, if your blood is acidic then your saliva will be too, extra acidic saliva will encourage more plaque than usual and dissolve the minerals like calcium and magnesium from your teeth making them brittle. the extra than normal plaque and acid will also be a reason why your gums can recede

So if blood is acidic, what can I do???

use pH buffers like calcium and magnesium or bicarb. not sure about bicarb in pregnancy, haven't had that much experience of it but could look it up if you were acidic. cal and mag as pH buffers also have the advantage of helping your teeth!!

misi - wtf are you talking about?! Alkaline babies leeching calcium from mothers' teeth?? This is total nonsense. Maybe you should mention in your advice that you have no medical training.

read my post, never said anything of the sort. do you know I have no medical training? have you any to make such a statement that something I didn't actually write is nonsense?

fact, babies take massive amounts of calcium and magnesium from their mothers to enable then to grow in the last trimester.

fact, mothers are slightly acidic and babies slightly alkaline at the time of birth

fact, this acid/alkali imbalance is the biggest cause of pre eclampsia

fact, the new baby smell that is so intoxicating is down to the alkali state of the baby, alkali=sweet, acid= sour

fact, baby continues to take calcium and magnesiun from mum during breast feeding and so the acid imbalance in mum and alkali abundance in baby will last until around 3 months after cessation of breast feeding

fact, acid states in adults cause excessive mineral leeching from the teeth through the saliva

fact, mineral deficiency in the teeth cause weakened teeth, receding gums and excess plaque formation.

fact, I have spent 7 years training, how about you???

training as what misi?

medical herbalist, nutritionist, hormone health, counselling (not quite finished that one) and several other diciplines. am trying to decide what to do for my PhD, more modern medical stuff or more nutrition stuff

misi, I read your post. You are saying, in a more round-about way than I did, that the developing baby takes calcium from the mother's body leading to a relative deficit and a lower pH. The more acid conditions of the mouth lead to de-mineralization of the teeth.
In contrast, the British Dental Association and American Dental Association both say quite categorically that pregnancy does not lead to loss of calcium from teeth. I'm inclined to think they know what they're talking about. They also recommend fluoride (note spelling) toothpaste during pregnancy.

(how) do I know you have no medical training? Because you are coming out with typical 'naturopath' pseudo-science like acid/alkali theories and anti-fluoridation. Your list of 'facts' is enlightening..

"mothers are slightly acidic and babies slightly alkaline at the time of birth" - really?? Show me one credible reference for this. I don't even know what it means. How do you measure a person's pH??

"this acid/alkali imbalance is the biggest cause of pre eclampsia" - you seem to have discovered something the rest of the medical world is ignorant of. Sounds like your PhD is in the bag!

"the new baby smell that is so intoxicating is down to the alkali state of the baby, alkali=sweet, acid= sour" - Ridiculous.

kd73 originally asked for input from a dental professional and you decided to give your opinion. Don't you think it would make sense to mention that you're not a dentist (nor a conventional medical practitioner)? You seem proud of your training - why not mention it?
Instead you plough on, turning a simple question about toothpaste into instructions to go for a blood pH test. And why should she have this blood test?.. because you want to 'check how acidic' she is! Bizarre.

pregnancy itself does not cause mineral depletion from the teeth. have you seen the BDA endorsed TV adverts for toothapste that says acid erosion can lead to tooth problems? that is what I said could be happening here, acid erosion due to pH buffer deficieny (2 most known pH buffers are calcium and magnesium, exactly that which baby is taking from mum). where do you think baby gets its calcium and magnesium from to grow its bones? mum cannot ingest enough to do this in the 3rd trimester so her hormones activate the calcium and magnesium dissolution process from her bones to transfer to baby. actually what I have written is from my modern medical training, not the herbalist side of my training. but really singlewhitemale, you still go on about not seeing how you can do this or that, but blood, saliva and urine pH tests are common practice in modern medicine and is easily done with the simplest of tools or screening. please enlighten me as to your training or qualifications, which I did ask for before but you have neglected to mention.
all of what I have said is common knowledge in the medical world both natural and modern, it is I who fail to see where you get your utter crap from in rubbishing stuff that in common knowledge!
modern med is about treating what is presented to you and treating the symptoms, natural med is about getting to the root cause and treating that. acid erosion is known about and is endorsed by the BDA on TV adverts. I explained how that acid state in mum could have come about. fluridation is known to interfere with hormones, and that is medical fact. my endocrinologist (a hormone specialist if you didn't know) told me to steer clear of fluride when I was diagnosed as hypothyroidic. he is a consultant at the top of his proffession, are you saying he doesn't know what he is on about too? dentists are not doctors, they know about teeth and little else, I wouldn't go on what they say too much when it comes to the rest of your health, I wouldn't take my car engine to be fixed by a bloke who changes the tyres, I also wouldn't go to a dentist to look after my general health.

maybe I could suggest some medical and natural texts for you to read, if you have a few yerars to go through them and learn from them it would be great.

you have a problem with natural medicine, I am fine with that as that is your perogative. if you wish to state your answer to the OP and give her advice etc, again that is your perogative, why you think you have the right to rubbish others contributions is not so clear. I seem to think all this is familiar though, same argument, different forum?

and by the way SWM, kd73 is free to do whatever she wants. I put one set of possibilites to her (without mentioning my quals so she is not pressured into doing anything she doesn't want to which is why I rarely state what I am) and she is free to follow that or not.

on the other forum, the argument was and many others on that forum agreed with me, that if you insist on stating what you are not, then the forums quickly die off.

I will only mention what I AM if I think I need to get across to a poster that I think they need to do something urgently, other than that I make suggestions and impart my knowledge that is freely available to all on other mediums without perceived pressure. When someone says they are a dcotor etc, the peroson getting the info will often feel obligated or pressured into following that advice, that is not what I am about, you are free to follow or not.

END OF please, I am and I know anyone else who has lasted this long must be getting fed up with this. if you wish to continue attacking my profession and knowledge, please do so on another thread, this is not the place to raise YOUR problems, as you say, it is about KD73 and her OP

Evening all.
kd73 I would advise using fluoride TP, just shops' own brand one will suffice; you can't really strengthen enamel once it's fully formed but flouride will help to protect against acid attack (from eating and drinking sugar-containing products).
Calcium in your diet (eg.milk) is good for baby but again won't make any difference to fully erupted teeth, so no need to OD on cowjuice!
Sounds like your awful toothache at 15/40 was perhaps from a decayed tooth which will have been that way for quite some time, and decay is not caused by pregnancy: it's not even directly related apart from if you have a hardcore chocolate brownie habit (like I did). The only thing that causes decay is sugar. Rarely do people have weak enamel inately. The subsequent tooth fracturing is likely to be coincidental (no pun intended), and I'm guessing was a restored tooth already? Glad you managed to keep it, they are better in than out!
Don't worry about your gum recession(unless it gets sensitive) but do brush gently on gumlines as well as teeth. Your DP needs to be shown how to brush properly by a hygeinist asap to heal his grotty gums and keep them healthy - nothing to do with what's in his toothpaste.
Lastly the bad news is that flossing is the best thing you can (both) do (apart from limit sugar), despite it being an unmitigated pain up the wotsit.

I hope this helps a bit and not too confusing, good luck with BB and BTW getting little one to brush is a total nightmare!!

Thank you for all the responses...

I have purchased a new electric toothbrush, am flossing now before bed each night and using a mouthwash as well 2x a day.

Have booked an appt with dentist and whilst things are not getting much better, nor do they seem to be getting worse (luckily)

Mummyhat, you are right in that the fractured tooth, had broken on the other side about a yr previously and so what was a minor repair, is now a major repair sadly...

Hopefully things will be ok until after baby born and then the dentist can poke/prod and xray to his hearts content...

Thanks again for everyones contributions