Recently at work, our weekly company Talko Tuesday meeting once again became Talko Toothsday when the conversation turned to teeth and dental care. I don't entirely know why this topic even comes up so much in this particular workplace, and over time I've made a show of attempting to opt out as much as possible. Please, spare me the details! This time, however, I brought it on myself, joking about how I had a thought about whether I should floss the baby's non-teeth after his first corn on the cob, and then the very next day, he got his first tooth! And unfortunately (or fortunately this time, as you will soon see), the dental hygiene conversation continued on.

At some point, I made a comment I thought would be one of those things several people would nod and smile at, about how Sensodyne is supposed to help you have less sensitive teeth, but it's hard to use properly since you have to rush to spit it out when the minty freshness starts burning after you've been brushing for a bit. But it turned out that while some people don't care for minty flavorings, this specific "must spit the fire now" experience did not really resonate. One coworker mentioned that it may be that I'm just allergic to something in that toothpaste - something I'd heard in passing as a story before, like someone who mentions offhand how spicy mangoes or bananas are and finds out they're actually just allergic to those fruits. But I'd never heard it about toothpaste.

I looked into it later, and found something called "SLS" or Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is a common additive in toothpastes (and some other products like body soaps and shampoos) that some people are mildly allergic to. Contact dermatitis, I learned, is a typical symptom, which can manifest as dry lips or mouth. In fact, I've had dry lips all summer, something I thought was weird but maybe somehow related to it being a pretty dry summer here. But I've never really heard of summer air conditioning causing dry skin, mostly winter heating instead. And despite the drought there's been no shortage of humidity this summer in Ottawa. My lips have been so dry they've been cracking and hurting at the corners of my mouth, something I've not really experienced as a winter dryness symptom, either. It was new for me this summer.

In fact, this summer I started using Sensodyne, because my wife already did, and it's supposed to help with teeth sensitivity so I might as well, right? The cold of biting in to a strawberry or grape straight from the fridge makes me wince. So I started using this toothpaste my wife's been using for a year or so now.

In fact my wife has been having this same mouth dryness issue too, for quite a bit longer than me. She had these sores at the corner of her mouth that she saw a doctor about who told her to try a topical treatment that didn't really help, but eventually she figured out just slathering on lots of lotion helped keep it under control. It's been an issue for her long enough that when it started for me, I was confident it wasn't any sort of contagious condition, but rather that I must now be having the same sort of environmental sensitivity that she is. She switched to Sensodyne on a dentist's recommendation a year or two ago now.

I threw away the tube of Sensodyne on the counter and brought out a spare tube of the kind I'd been using before I switched. It's minty, but doesn't burn - I can brush for 10 minutes again, lost in thought before bed, if I want to. The irritation at the corners of my mouth cleared up immediately. My partner's did, too.

So we've established that both of us must have some sort of sensitivity to something in the toothpaste, probably SLS though I've read there are other ingredients that can cause issues. Great.

I thought about how our kid flinches back when the toothbrush reaches her, how much of a struggle it is to get her to brush each night even though she's pretty chill about other required parts of the daily hygiene processes. We've tried a couple different flavors of toothpaste but she hates them all.

I looked up recommendations for SLS-free flouride toothpastes for kids and saw Orajel Natural Anti-Cavity recommended. The nearby pharmacy carries it, in marshmallow. We bought some and tried it last night.

“This is the much better toothpaste ever!” she said.

So that settles that.