Loading...Q. I want to thank you for a recent tip on using Crest Sensitivity toothpaste to help with allergies. My daughter always needs to use her inhaler frequently when she comes home from college, due to cat allergies. This past weekend, she didn’t need the inhaler one single time. She started using the toothpaste two weeks ago.
A. Thanks for sharing her experience. A caller on our radio show told us that Crest Sensitivity Toothpaste had helped his asthma. We found this fascinating but surprising. The active ingredient is potassium nitrate, a compound that was used to treat asthma and arthritis a century ago. Although it is unlikely there is enough in toothpaste to have a pharmacological effect, your daughter is not the only one to report benefit.
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lsb
are you supposed to swallow the tooth paste or spit?
PEOPLE’S PHARMACY RESPONSE: Don’t swallow toothpaste. Spit it out.
CAROL
After reading your article regarding Crest Sensitivity Toothpaste helping allergies, I tried using it. I couldn’t see that it made much difference; however, I kept using it for about three weeks or more. Then I developed a sore inside my lower lip that looked some like a boil, and that and the whole outer part of my lip in that area itched. I stopped using that toothpaste when it began to burn the sore, which then began to dissipate. Then I went back to that toothpaste, and the sore recurred. I am now using another toothpaste, and the sore has disappeared.
Suzanne
I shopped for sensitive toothpaste yesterday, and think I might know why RLB missed the ingredient – most packages list active and inactive ingredients separately. The ‘inactive’ list is long and what you are used to seeing when you check ingredients.
One surprise in most of the ingredient lists was sorbitol! My daughter with asthma is very, very sensitive to sorbitol. Only Sensodyne Full Protection plus Whitening had no sorbitol (other Sensodyne versions did).
NJA
I sure wish I had a list of every vegetable, mineral or protein that helped asthma. Maybe Joe Graedon will publish a list.
Thanks for the Colgate tip. Yesterday I bought a big tube of Crest. I am going to take it back and check out the potassium nitrate on all the brands.
AGC
RLB is incorrect. Crest Sensitivity with Scope has Potassium Nitrate and Sodium Fluoride. Sensodyne and Aquafresh for sensitive teeth also had the same ingredients. Went to Ralph’s to check which toothpaste had the Potassium Nitrate and it seemed the most expensive ones for sensitive teeth had them.
AGC(a fellow pharmacist)
RLB
Read the article about using Crest Sensitivity toothpaste to relieve allergies stating active ingredient is Potassium Nitrate.
I find that Crest Sensitivity does not contain Potassium Nitrate, but Colgate Sensitivity does.
RLB