Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Smile!

For the past few weeks I've been struggling with an unusual problem. My tongue hurts as though it's been burned. The symptoms started not long after my mom passed away. I searched the internet for answers with no real success. Was I sick? Could it be related to depression?

Toward the beginning of April I finally talked to my brother in law's ex who has some expertise in the area of acupuncture and symptoms that show up on tongues. At the time it appeared that my tongue had a split in the middle and Amanda suggested a major cause was primarily dehydration. At the time I'd been drinking a pot of green tea and a pot of herbal tea each day, so I gave up the tea and started drinking just water. My tongue seemed to get better and then suddenly got worse again.

Yesterday I did some more internet searching and found a reference to possible reactions to toothpaste... That got me thinking. For years I have always bought the "cheap" toothpaste, Aim, Ultrabright..., the ones that cost little more than a dollar per tube, but when my mom passed away, she'd left a half used tube of Crest Pro Health. I'd used the remainder of the tube and liked how my teeth felt, so I bought another tube a couple weeks ago. When did my symptoms start? Yeah, soon after my mother's passing... What do you know? All kinds of people have complained about tongue and mouth pain after using Crest Pro Health products.

In the meantime, I've given up drinking both coffee and tea every morning and have spent the last week drinking just water. That probably won't last forever but it's nice to know I'm currently caffeine free.

9 comments:

  1. Wow, I've not heard of this and I'm in the field. Crest always brings us samples of Crest Pro Health and I give them out to people with a new toothbrush and floss. I'm so glad you told me about this. I will be talking to my boss about it and will send a report on it to my friend Rose. I'll also post it on the Hygiene facebook page.

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    1. I wouldn't have been so sure had it not come up in consumer report complaints. Did you look it up? Pretty crazy!.

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    2. We never recommend the Pro Health rinse because it stains the teeth, but Crest brings us the Pro Health toothpaste samples sometimes. So far, no complaints, but I don't know if people ever use the samples. I don't recommend any whitening toothpastes EVER because they tend to be more abrasive and make the teeth more sensitive. Dave and I rarely even use toothpaste. We brush with a fluoride rinse instead. Michael uses children's toothpaste and Steven uses a natural toothpaste.

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    1. Yeah, Betsy, exactly!
      Now I'm hoping it will clear up as fast as it came on.

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  3. That is interesting. I have never heard of reactions to Crest Pro. I have a friend with a similar problem perhaps it's related. I use cheap toothpaste too. Maybe I will stop drinking coffee sometime. It has been cloudy, rainy and in the 40's here since it stopped snowing. (Well, I hope it stopped snowing). Anyway a hot cup of coffee is so good when it is lousy outside.

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    1. I had a watered down half cup of coffee this morning. It was yummy.
      :0)

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