When Aaron was a kid, he and his brothers (never the girls that I've heard of, just the boys) were always eating weird, random, uneatable things. Their mom had to call poison control a lot. I was hoping that I would escape from these genes, and for three years we've done a pretty good job. But last night our turn came.
While Aaron and I were downstairs making dinner, Ivan was upstairs doing something quietly. (Never a good sign.) He came down and had green stuff on his face. Aaron was curious as to what it was and asked Ivan if he'd been in the markers. Then Aaron got closer and said Ivan smelled like bubble gum. Ivan ran over to me and I picked him up and smelled his face. He smelled like tooth paste. Neither of us really thought anything of it at that point, I'm not sure why. We had dinner, went for a walk, and came home and started putting the kids to bed.
When we went into the bathroom to brush their teeth, there was tooth paste all over the counter. That's the first time we'd really considered that Ivan had actually eaten the tooth paste. Aaron wanted to call poison control right away, but I wasn't sure. The tube didn't feel any lighter than normal, and I didn't think Ivan was capable of squeezing a large amount out of the bottle. Plus, he hadn't been acting weird or anything. We decided to hold off calling, but Aaron looked up the symptoms of what happens after you swallow tooth paste, so we would know what to be looking out for.
About 15 minutes after we got the boys in bed, Ivan started crying. We went upstairs and found his bed covered in throw up. Fun. I got Ivan out of his clothes and into the bath and tried to get him to calm down, while Aaron went and called poison control. They told Aaron that a kid Ivan's size would have to eat 2 1/2 oz of tooth paste for it to be dangerous to him. We weren't sure how much he'd eaten, but didn't think it was that much. The guy told us to watch him and he would call back in an hour to see how we were doing. Ivan throw up a bunch more in the tub. He kept telling me that his tummy hurt, and would I please put a band aid on his tummy. Poor kid. He was really miserable. Once he felt well enough to get out of the tub, I put him in some jammies and back in bed. Five minutes later he was yelling, "I poopy!" at the top of his lungs. So I went up, and sure enough, blow out diaper. Liquid, tooth paste smelling poop. Double fun. After that, he said his tummy didn't hurt anymore, and he was starting to act like his normal self. I put him back to bed, and he went to sleep.
The poison control guy called us back to make sure everything was ok, and had a wake up Ivan before we went to bed, just to make sure he was still behaving normally. He was. And all was well. I hope we don't have to call poison control too many more times in our lives. Not at the top of my list of things I like to do. But I'm glad Ivan is ok (obviously).
I am also going to replace the boys' tooth paste with a non-fluoride kind. I've been skeptical about fluoride for awhile, and now I'm pretty much convinced that it is a poison. I feel like my kids can have good, strong teeth from eating a healthy diet and brushing and flossing on a regular basis. I don't think they need fluoride. And after this experience I know what negative effects fluoride can have if too much gets into your system, and it doesn't seem worth the risk to me. So no more fluoride for us, not in tooth paste, not in treatments, and not in our water if I can help it.
1 comment:
I was actually told by a dentist to make sure that Alestair didn't get too much floride because they have found a lot of cities are putting too much into the water than is really good. So we use non floride toothpaste or baking soda. either one works well. I am impressed you didnt lose it! I would have...Be ready for the ER its much more not fun in the middle of the night.
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