Rickets reported in Cardiff

BBC Wales reports that cases of the crippling children's bone disease rickets are being seen in Cardiff. "Caused by a lack of vitamin D, the disease can lead to deformities like bowed legs and stunted growth, but it largely disappeared last century. Eye on Wales has learnt health professionals working in communities in south Cardiff are reporting incidents."

Vitamin D deficiency can result in a host of serious health conditions, including susceptibility to colds and flu, overweight and dental problems. See Vitamin D Deficiency. Sunshine is a good source of vitamin D. Food sources include oily fish such as salmon and sardines, eggs, full fat natural yoghurt, whole milk and beef liver. Low fat diets are not healthy, but they are particularly bad for children. Your doctor can arrange for vitamin D level testing.

Taking Amitriptyline for oral/mouth pain is not a good idea

Taking Amitriptyline for oral/mouth pain is not a good idea in my opinion. Amitriptyline is a tricyclic antidepressant that is sometimes prescribed as a painkiller, particularly when the pain is in the mouth. This is often because the prescribing doctor doesn't really believe that the patient actually is in pain, especially if the patient is female.

Doctors who prescribe amitriptyline for pain sometimes explain to the patient that amitriptyline is an antidepressant drug that can help with pain, but often these doctors deliberately deceive the patients into believing that amitriptyline actually is a painkiller and do not mention that it is an antidepressant, and that they are prescribing it because they have decided the patient is 'a depressive', not a person in pain. Doctors often confuse depression and pain, unfortunately.

Whatever the ins and outs of the matter, amitriptyline is not a good idea for mouth pain. - For one thing antidepressants work no better than dummy pills for depression. For another thing, they usually cause unhealthy weight gain and all its attendant health problems. And amitriptyline in particular causes 'dry mouth', which patients are told will stop when their body has got used to the drug, but which often does not stop however long they are unfortunate enough to be on the drug.

Now 'dry mouth'/lack of saliva obviously makes dental decay more likely, especially of the lower teeth, since normally many of these are bathed in saliva most of the time, and this inbuilt natural 'mouthwash', therefore, protects the teeth to some extent from food residue clinging to them. Furthermore, saliva is a buffer solution which chemically protects teeth from acid attack. So existing mouth pain is likely to be augmented by the development of dental caries, making matters worse, not better.