Kanduti, D. (2016). Fluoride: A review of use and effects on health. PMC, 28(2): 133-137.

Fluoride is one of the single most important and effective ways to prevent and arrest

dental caries. However, fluoride in high concentrations can cause acute toxicity in patients

which can lead to; nausea, weakness, bloody vomiting, muscle paralysis, collapse and even

death. Fluoride poisoning today is mainly due to unsupervised ingestion of oral hygiene

products and over-fluoridated water. It was concluded that topical use on a tooths surface was

both safe and effective.

Using fluoride in dental practice is fairly common and I am certain I will become more

and more familiar with it as I progress through the dental hygiene program. It’s recommended

that everybody brushes their teeth with fluoride toothpaste twice a day to prevent dental

caries. Another useful bit of information I learned in this article is that you should start brushing

children’s teeth as soon as the first tooth erupts and supervise their brushing up to age 7. This

both teaches children proper brushing techniques and limiting the amount of toothpaste

ingestion.

In class we’ve learned that chronic excess fluoride ingestion also results in dental

fluorosis, faint white lines or streaks on the tooth surface that mostly occur in young children.

This information alone will affect my future in the dental field. I feel it will be part of my

responsibility to discuss the importance of fluorosis with my adult and child patients as we’ve

discussed in class it is important for children to have a smear of toothpaste for younger children

and a pea sized for older children to prevent swallowing to much fluoride.