As an informal part two of my campaign to bring back fluoride into our water supply like a normal, well-educated community, I wanted to spend a little bit of column inches to go over my own personal experience of what it is like when a community removes fluoride from the water and the consequences thereafter.
Before I begin, in my last column, I declared that I believe in science. A friend has reminded me that science is science regardless of whether or not I, or you, believe in it. You can have your own opinion. You cannot have your own facts. Facts are facts and science is science and the science stands with fluoridation and removing it from our public water supply is a bad idea. Also, it has been exceptionally inconvenient for me personally and traumatic for my son.
Last year, my son had a dentist appointment. We have been blessed with good health care coverage and have been able to go for cleanings and check-ups every four months. At this appointment, he got a full x-ray exam, which revealed four cavities.
From zero to four in six months.
For context, our daughter is a candy fiend and loves all sweets and chocolate. Left to her own devices, she would subsist on corn syrup and soda pop and jitter her way through life.
Our son, on the contrary, chooses water to drink and fruit is his poison. Forty per cent of our grocery bill is bananas, oranges and apples. He can have treats but he would rather an apple over a cookie.
I would have guessed that my daughter would have been the kid with bad teeth but here we were. It was recommended that he be sedated in order to take care of the cavities all at once and it was expensive but we did it in order to not have him overly traumatized at the dentist. He was put asleep, they fixed up the cavities and we carried him home - a leggy, six-year-old with a fresh root canal and a crown on a tooth that will eventually fall out. My husband and I both had to take the day off work because you need two adults to drive home because the kids are out of it and super floppy.
Fast forward to a month ago and his crown has fallen out, he's developed an abscess and he's in a lot of pain. He's in so much pain that he's not eating much, which breaks my heart because he loves to eat. We brought him back to the regular dentist after spending the evening with hipsters in the walk-in medical clinic to get antibiotics. The tooth had to be pulled and a spacer put in to hold the space for the adult molar.
Two needles later, my son is convinced that everything will hurt and he screamed every time the dentist came near him. Back to the other dentist we go so he can be sedated to pull the tooth. This time however, he's older, heavier and harder to manage.
Unlike the first sedation where he just slept for fourteen hours straight and woke up ready to party at 3 a.m., this time he was convinced that he need to be somewhere. He is a limby, almost eight-year-old, who weighs 70 pounds. A stringy boy is hard to hold down when he is hallucinating, convinced he's got to be somewhere and bleeding profusely from his swollen mouth on my sofa pillows. He was scared, frustrated and upset. He couldn't talk (which is a major hobby of his) and he so desperately wanted to feel better.
Our dentist has told us that without fluoride in the water, there is no time to "keep a watch" on kid's teeth in between appointments. The cavities will start and get worse in between appointments and our kids teeth hurt.
Cavities and fillings and needles for children have increased exponentially since fluoride has been removed from our water. Is this the type of thing that our community wants to be known for? There is no legitimate reason to remove fluoride. There is nothing that says that we can't have it back.
By discussing my family's experience with childhood dentistry and relating it to fluoride, there will be a number of personal attacks made towards me and my parenting. People will say that I am a terrible mother and we have terrible hygiene and that is why my son has cavities. People will say exceptionally awful things about me personally. It is comments like these that make it difficult for regular people to stand up and fight for the things that are scientifically-proven and factual from any qualitative measure. Activism is for the strong-willed and passionate people who can withstand public vitriol, hate and slander.
I am not an activist. Most of the time, I like to stay at home and read on the couch. I write a family-based column that is focused on the community that we live in and what it is like to live here. It is hard to put yourself in the public eye knowing that the internet trolls will come and visit and the people who agree with you will do so quietly and without fervour because that is what is encouraged in our society.
If you are one of the quiet majority, I am calling on you to take a very small step forward towards the greater good of our community. Contact a member of city council - the contact information for all of the councillors is conveniently located on the City of Prince George website. Ask your representative about what they believe and whether they stand with science and fact, not hysterical untruths.
Ask them to stand up for us and for the health of the community at large.
It is not just about me and my family, it is about yours, and your neighbours, and for the families that cannot afford to take their kids to the dentist because they do not have extended health care.
This community fought to keep the dental hygienist program in our community; let's fight to bring back fluoride too.
