Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

From the study:

Animals treated with indomethacin and celecoxib show a significant decrease in the content of calcium and phosphorus when compared to control group. Treatment also increased carbon, but did not change oxygen content compared to control group. Microhardness test was performed and both treatments reduced the enamel hardness compared to the control group. Regarding to enamel morphology, treatment did not impact enamel thickness and volume, but significantly reduced the mineral density. Visual inspection of the enamel, showed no significant structural or color change.

Not clear why the study design is atypical re dosage and duration of administration of the drugs. Normally, kids are given NSAIDs only when in pain or sick - fewer than, e.g. 3-4 low dose administrations a month, if that.

"celecoxib (n = 20) or indomethacin (n = 20) treatment for a period of 28 days or received no medication (control group, n = 20). "

[removed]

Not sure where children commonly take either of those, but it’s not in the US. Only in unusual circumstances would either of those be used for children here.

Where I'm from coxibs and nsaids aren't prescribed that routinely. Especially to kids.

Celecoxib is commonly prescribed for juvenile arthritis and indomethacin is commonly used for a congenital heart defect (PDA) prior to surgery. Long-term daily use is the expected dosing for those indications. You aren't typically getting a prescription of these for a headache after all.

[removed]

It is in the US. These drugs are NSAIDs used to treat inflammatory diseases. Kids can have arthritis, and it’s not that uncommon.

Like what another commenter said, they’re not prescribed for small things. More like arthritis or other heavier conditions that involve inflammation

I would say it’s still relatively rare for kids to have arthritis or some other inflammatory condition necessitating any of these NSAIDs vs something like ibuprofen. Even if 5% of all kids have arthritis, that’s still “uncommon.”

If you want to call that uncommon, then sure. But that’s not my point. I was a child with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and was put on a ton of strong drugs to treat it. I grew up in hospitals surrounded by kids taking these kinds of meds, stronger ones too. My point is that if the kid needs the med, they’re prescribed the med.

Also, ibuprofen isn’t prescribed as a primary treatment for arthritis…

Obviously if a kid needs to take any of these they will take it. The point the OP was making is that these are not regularly prescribed to the average patient. They are not over the counter either, so it’s very unlikely your average child will ever take them. Also, I just pulled 5% out of my butt. I highly doubt 5% of kids have arthritis.

I’m too lazy to convert these to percents but here’s some stats I found bc I was curious too:

>The incidence of juvenile idiopathic arthritis in North America and Europe is estimated to be 4 to 16 in 10,000 children. Approximately 294,000 children in the United States are affected.

https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/juvenile-idiopathic-arthritis/#frequency

>Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is one of the most common pediatric chronic diseases, with a yearly incidence between 1.6 and 23 new cases per 100,000 children

https://www.orpha.net/consor/cgi-bin/OC_Exp.php?Lng=GB&Expert=85414

That would be .04-.16% for the top stat and .0016-.023% for the bottom number. Certainly there are kids using these meds, which is why it’s beneficial to study their long term effects, however it isn’t what I’d consider common. Always good to see research into drug side effects in kiddos though as it seems peds research is always years behind adults.

My teeth & many other childrens’ were permanently stained yellow in the 60’s due to an antibiotic prescribed. We didn’t even have our permanent teeth, still baby teeth. My younger brothers were worst than mine. My older two siblings teeth are fine. My Mom couldn’t remember if just us younger two took the medicine and not the older two so can’t determine if age a factor. Spent lots money in the 80’s for “whitening” which never really worked. That antibiotic is no longer prescribed for young children.

So yeah, it happens…

What a stupid click bait title. Those drugs aren’t “commonly taken by children”. At best it should say “commonly prescribed to treat X in children”, where X is quite uncommon.

Bout to say, this is kind of common, didn’t we already know about this?

The way this works is they probably tested several NSAIDS and the most egregious were put in the paper. (Did medical research in the past)

Juvenile arthritis and a certain heart defect.

Thank you for clarifying.

Idk. "Commonly taken by children" is pretty spot on. It's Commonly prescribed for a plethora of ailments.

Could of told ya that 40 year’s ago. Little late

[removed]

[removed]

So can strong antibiotics taken by infants.

Indomethacin is prescribed to preemies who have holes in their heart because the middle part hasn’t closed yet.

Yes. For a week. Also it’s not common.

Anecdotal evidence doesn’t change the fact that it is in fact rare for these drugs to be used for children

Unless directed by your dentist, children should not be given these drugs which are having bad side effects.