Round And Round We Go

In 1961 in a Peanuts comic strip, Linus spoke the wise words, “There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people...religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.”  What he should have said was, "There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people...religion, politics and fluoride." 

Yes, our dentist got a new assistant and she is a fluoride Nazi.  We have been through this before to where I almost walked out in the middle of an appointment with the little paper bib still clipped around my child's neck.  That assistant finally gave up on us once she realized I wasn't ever going to "understand" the importance of fluoride.  Just to be sure we are always on the same page, I remind them when we sign the form and tell the kids in front of them that if they try to put the little tray of goo on their teeth to tell them no.

Miss Fluoride Nazi (MFN) couldn't believe we would make such a grave mistake.  We don't "seek out those non-fluoride toothpastes too" do we?"!!!  Dancer goes back and they both come out after the appointment and MFN announces that by some miracle, Dancer's non-fluorinated mouth doesn't have any cavities. 

However, when MFN dried off her teeth she could see on the front teeth that there was a little wear and if she had had fluoride that would have never happened and if she just took her back now and painted a little fluoride on them she could save the day.  First off, you dried off her teeth?  What? 

I, not getting as excited as she must have hoped, said it must have been from the brackets of her braces, they warn you of that before they put them on, or the medal on her retainer might just be rubbing a bit in the front.  What?! She doesn't have a plastic retainer on top?!  We had better bring that in so they can look at it.  Yeah, I think we will ask the orthodontist, who we paid a crap load of money to and is an expert in this area, about it the next time we go in.

At this point MFN was being to see that I wasn't going to "understand" and she finished with instructions to Dancer to "rub toothpaste on her teeth and not rinse after brushing." Duly noted. 

She also showed me that she wrote, in all caps mind you, that "MOM SAYS NO FLUORIDE" in her chart.  Good, maybe we won't have to go through this next time then. 

When we got in the car, I asked Dancer if she brought it up during the appointment.  Dancer said she hadn't even reclined yet and MFN asked why her mom doesn't want her to get fluoride.  Dancer said she just said she didn't know - my kids are experts at blowing people off on these issues, dodging homeschooling questions will do that for you.  She did get quite the fluoridication for a good majority of the appointment though.

Had I known beforehand MFN was going to get so excited, I would have instructed her to put her mask on nice and snug because Dancer doesn't have all her immunizations either.