showering with tap water..fluoride!! :(

hi CS and others,

does fluoride penetrate our skin?

Yes, apparently your body absorbs more water in the shower than what you drink in a day!

what does Flouride do to skin/hair? O.O

I've always heard the amounts of flouride and chlorine and stuff in tap water are too low to do much or any harm.

I have heard that it's also possible to filter water coming into your home... it certainly removes things like the causes of limescale... I don't know about chlorine and flouride though! Also it's probably expensive and obviously isn't viable for those who are renting etc!

Fluoride primarily enters through the lungs, which ends up in any tissue thereafter. Chlorine readily absorbs through the skin.

The only reliable way to filter fluoride from the shower is a reverse osmosis filter from the mainline. I don't do this, (maybe in the future), so I just take plenty of iodine to deal with it.

iodine seems to be the only way to combat it.

its crazy that every time we shower with tap water, we are indirectly hurting our hair!!!!

So, when I shower with tap water... chlorine AND flouride are getting into me? That causes the hair follicles harm?

And I do drink a LOT of tap water, although I have a water filter (just a normal brita one). Am I ok if I use the filter or will I need something more?

Wow this stuff is pretty complex! I'm sure I won't be out of my depth forever though!

Hoppipolla - Brita filters or other charcoal based filters only purified large minerals (some essential), so they may remove lead and other larger minerals. However, they will not remove drug wastes from the water, or fluoride (which is extremely small).

Your best bet is reverse osmosis for drinking. There are chlorine filters for the shower, but unfortunately, none for fluoride.

I use a Berkey filter with flouride filter for my drinking water.

I use an Aquasana for the shower - not sure if it filters flouride but it definitely filters chlorine.

if you boil tap water, does that get rid of fluoride and chlorine?

I use an AquaSana for the shower to at least get the chlorine but no, it doesn't take care of Fluoride.

As CS mentioned, a Reverse Osmosis filter on the mainline is the #1 key to a healthier life in my opinion. Regarding us absorbing more water through the skin than during the day...if I wake up and am dehydrated, I'll have bags under my eyes and look horrible. So, I take a shower and bam, completely hydrated, bags significantly lessened, feel great.

Unfortunately, you get Fluoride with that as well.

Iodine as a means to displace Fluoride is another option, however, I think that we simply ingest far too much Fluoride for Iodine to make much of a difference. Consider:

- Drinking from a water fountain
- Drinking from spring water (natural fluoride perhaps)
- Drinking juice, soda pop, etc. (all using regular water with Fluoride in it, even the organic juices)
- Alcohol
- Food that we ingest that required water for processing
- Showering
- Swimming

The list spans...

That said, to combat fluoride I'd recommend:

#1 - Reverse Osmosis Filter (start saving, it'll be between $1k and $2k)
#2 - Stick with drinking solely the water from your Reverse Osmosis filter, bottle it in glass or stainless steel (avoid plastic due to leeching)
#3 - Bring your own water to the gym and restaurants (to avoid drinking the water/coffee/tea/juice/soda pop that they provide)
#4 - Be reasonable with alcohol consumpion
#5 - Supplement on large amounts of Iodine, up to 50mg perhaps
#6 - Despite the health benefits, I don't care for swimming due to the chemical content in public pools
#7 - Use Baquasil instead of Chlorine in your home pools
#8 - Try to eat as organic and natural as possible (grass-fed meat)

Trust me...I far from follow the above, but I'd like to gradually work up to it in my life.

I drink distilled water, partly because I think it tastes best, that shouldn't have any fluoride in it, should it?

Yah distilled water shouldnt have anything left in it really. It's probably the most complete purification process for water. Growing up, my parents have had a distiller for a long time, and its crazy to see the sediment thats in the bottom of the distiller at the end of the process.

Hmm that's interesting! I mean I would buy bottled water or something but it's just so expensive (and also feels kinda wasteful with all the plastic bottles!), plus it might not be that much better anyway!

When I was really into conspiracy theories and stuff I do remember hearing about some kind of filter that they advertised as being able to remove like EVERYTHING to make the water totally pure. I'll see if I can look it up.

Reverse osmosis sounds quite expensive, and distilled water is obviously much cheaper but still comes with a price tag! heh

Yeah I'll have a look into those really good filters I heard about - I wonder how they work!

From what I understand, distilled water really should have next to no impurities left in it. The water is basically converted into a steam and then channeled into a seperate container. As far as taste goes, I always thought that it tasted like nothing. This would make sense to me because there arent any minerals left in the water either.

I do something pretty cheap. I've got a 5 gallon container, and I just go to a local water store, which charges me 25 cents
per gallon. It's reverse osmosis water using some 11-step filter system.

I'm a little leery of distilled water, because it tends to pull out essential minerals.

It's a good idea to make sure one is taking some minerals so that they are not deficient, the most obvious of course are zinc, magnesium, chromium, selenium, sodium, manganese, lithium and iodine.