What Happens if You Swallow Toothpaste?

What happens if you accidentally swallow toothpaste while brushing your teeth? How dangerous is it for an adult or for a child?

Toothpaste, it’s cool, refreshing, makes your breath smell good and battles bacteria and plaque. Is swallowing toothpaste actually bad for you? Why would something that appears so good potentially be bad for your health?

Accidentally Swallowed Toothpaste

The toothpaste product packaging need to have directions. Like Dr. Sie states, you do need to go to the ER if you’ve swallowed a lot. Nevertheless, there does not seem a precise procedure, other than that children under the age of 6 have to see the doctor if they swallow more than a dollop.

Maturing, finding out how to brush your teeth is something every kid finds out early. But I keep in mind part of that lesson being, “Don’t swallow the toothpaste, it’s bad for you.” I’m sure most of you have actually heard this and it’s something we do not truly think about questioning.

Not swallowing the tooth paste is something we rely on and it’s something the majority of us simply do not do. However is it truly bad for your health or possibly dangerous? As normal, we’re going to dig a little much deeper in this odd and uncommon thought and just see what we can develop.

Tooth paste and the United States FDA

If you haven’t observed before, tooth brushes do not have any kind of warning label on the packages. Absolutely nothing noted by the FDA at all. However look on a tube of tooth paste and you’ll see that alerting label.

1997 marked a point in time that the FDA discovered tooth paste makers weren’t following the safety guidelines carefully enough where toothpaste was concerned. After which a quite frightening warning label started to appear on your favorite brands.

One such warning states: Keep out of reach of children under 6 years of age. If more than used for brushing is unintentionally swallowed, get medical aid or call a Poison Control Center immediately.

Now that seems like a pretty scary warning doesn’t it? It’s absolutely something that would make people a little weary of swallowing their tooth paste.

Toothpaste Warning Labels

As you can see, after tooth paste boxes hit the shelves with the new caution label attached, there was mass turmoil and people had lots of worry and had many questions.

The toothpaste consumer phone lines got numerous calls from worried customers with concerns, and the Poison Control Centers were receiving tons of calls too.

There were numerous anxious parents going nuts cos their child might of accidentally swallowed a bit of tooth paste. Truth is, the typical customer really didn’t understand what to anticipate and weren’t sure just how bad the scenario might be.

Basically the responses that were gotten specified that everything would be fine, however there might be some vomiting included, or not … But if the vomiting continued or became severe, then a see to the doctor might remain in order.

So basically the only side effect to swallowing tooth paste appeared to be an indigestion and possible dehydration due to excessive vomiting. In reality, according to the statistics, 4,453 cases of fluoride exposure were reported the year before alerting labels hit the shelves. However to not a surprise, none of these cases were harmful.

Do you know what is the best toothpaste to use for a child of 10 years old?

Is the Fluoride Used in Toothpaste Toxic?

Without a doubt, fluoride salts are in reality harmful when consumed in large quantities. But a deadly dose of sodium fluoride is someplace around 5 to ten grams for a grownup. Here’s the kicker, in an eight ounce tube of Colgate, there is less than half a gram of sodium fluoride in the entire tube.

So if you do the math on that, it would take nearly 10 8 ounce tubes of toothpaste to even touch the lower end of that threshold. It’s extremely not likely that anyone brushing their teeth would take in that much. They would actually have to feast on a bowl filled with toothpaste prior to it would end up being toxic.

Yes, children are much smaller sized and logic tells us it wouldn’t take near as much for a child to end up being sick from tooth paste that it would for a grownup. But any child would still need to take in numerous tubes of the things before they would get sick.

Are the Warning Labels Really Necessary?

After learning the facts about how hard it would be to get sick from toothpaste, then you’re probably wondering, “Are the alerting labels really needed?”

Inning accordance with the American Dental Association, the primary concern with entering contact with too much fluoride is fluorosis. Fluorosis is a cosmetic discoloration of the teeth caused from excessive fluoride entering contact with your teeth. It’s rather common in children who drink fluoridated water.

It will generally show as small white specks on the teeth and it’s actually quite safe as far as your health is concerned. But it can get quite bad if a continued habit of eating toothpaste is formed. This is the primary reason the ADA advises a small amount of toothpaste on the brush.

The American Dental Association had in fact opposed the caution identifies stating they were grossly over exaggerating the seriousness of what would occur by ingesting tooth paste.

So to sum things up, yes tooth paste tubes do have a warning label, however things aren’t as bad as they make it sound. Unless you swallow a half gallon of tooth paste, chances are you’ll be fine. However I still believe it’s good practice to teach your children not to eat that delicious tasting stuff. If for no other reason, it’s tradition.