Z has cavities :-( Naturally (haha!) I didn't want to drill and fill so I went on a bit of a mission to find some way to heal them without a trip to the dentist. Enter Dr. Weston Price. For those of you unfamiliar, Dr. Price recommended maintaining healthy teeth through diet, namely the addition of Vitamin D through raw dairy and bone broths and the removal of grains from our diets. He also advocated the use of cod liver oil and butter oil which synergistically act to nourish teeth and help them remineralize. Remineralization - now that's a term you will not hear at a dentist's office primarily because most dentists don't believe a cavity can be reversed :-) Always one to fight the norm, I set out to see if I could prove them wrong. (that sounds awful; my real motive was definitely improving my daughter's dental health, honest!)
Step 1: Research on the best cod liver oil supplement out there. Verdict? Green Pasture. They have a variety of products on their website and you can read some more about the importance of cod liver oil as well as Vits A & D for healthy teeth.
Step 2: Find a way to get the fishy (!) stuff into my daughter's unusually, firmly closed and unable-to-pry-open mouth. The first attempt ended in chocolate-y, fishy, goo all over my nice clean kitchen floor. Hmm..if I'm going to justify spending $40 (yes it is expensive but a little goes a long way as I later learnt) every so often on a jar of this super food, I'm going to have to do better than that. Enter my saviour.. apple sauce! Mixed 1/2 tsp in a tablespoon full of it and lo and behold, it actually stayed in her mouth and off the floor!
Step 3: Keep the routine going every day for a couple of months..now there's the real challenge! I need to stock up on apple sauce and be very diligent about cleaning my spoons because I need one for getting the oil out, another to scoop out the apple sauce and a third to mix them together. Why you ask? Well if your child is even 1/4 as fussy as Z, you will not be able to get away with a speck of that oil in the tub of apple sauce or on the spoon that is eventually used to finish the tub to drown out the taste!
Soooo..I will chronicle my journey to reverse Z's cavities in this post. So far I'm about 10 days into it and have noticed a couple of interesting things. Firstly, the last cold Z had did *not* develop into a cough. For those of you who have read my post about coughs, you know that every cold she has goes to her chest. Not this one, yay! Secondly, she has to some extent lessened what my ped. called 'mouthing' i.e. putting random, yucky things in her mouth. And when I say yucky, I mean really yucky! I have heard that mouthing can be related to deficiencies..some say zinc, others calcium and my pediatrician said possibly iron as well. I am thinking then that perhaps this high vitamin oil might actually be bridging some of those. Fascinating, no? Did I tell you I LOVE natural remedies? Especially when they work ;-)
I will keep you posted.
Do keep this investigation going. I took my younger one (1.5 yrs) to the dentist for the first time yesterday. On the bright side, his four-minute "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" assisted the dentist in looking inside his mouth.
ReplyDeleteTell me about it. You are better than me though as I didn't take Z until she was nearing 3 and not only did she have cavities but one was quite bad :( Anyhoo let's see how this goes; I have also heard that adding Vit D supplementation in of itself can help so there is hope! xx
DeleteI had never heard of cod liver oil before for remineralization. I have a 20-month old picky eater, so thanks for the tip about mixing with applesauce before serving. I appreciate it!
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting and for your comment! I am hoping for good results with the cod liver oil, will keep everyone posted :-) xx
Delete