Watch YouTube videos on how to brush and floss.
I am absolutely taking the L here since I’ve apparently been brushing my teeth wrong for most of my life.
I’ll never get flossing right so water picking has been the next best thing.
I currently spend a 1-2k a year at the dentist, which imo, isn’t that bad. But probably way less had I learned proper brushing and had better flossing habits.
Brush, floss and mouthwash. Stay clear of gum and soda.
Based on recent research, mouthwash is now in question in my books.
We aimed to assess if daily usage of Listerine Cool Mint influenced the composition of the pharyngeal microbiome… Listerine use was associated with an increased abundance of common oral opportunistic bacteria previously reported to be enriched in periodontal diseases, oesophageal and colorectal cancer, and systemic diseases. These findings suggest that the regular use of Listerine mouthwash should be carefully considered.
Basically, it differentially kills good bacteria, leaving more of the bad kind.
https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.001830
Mouthwash has never been a question in mine. Brush, floss, and genetics. Mouthwash is for suckers.
Isn’t xylitol gum recommended though? Maybe I’m using the wrong term.
What about sugar-free gum?
It’s not the sugar, it’s the abrasive.
Totally true which is why I only chew abrasive free.
A toothpaste that restores your enamel. It’s prescription in the US but you can get Apagard Premio off Amazon.
It’s probably a good idea to get some extra fluoride since the Apagard doesn’t have any. I use purple Listerine, but I kinda hate it, so find something you like.
You should floss, which I’m shitty at, so I use a water pick a few times a week. All kinds of nasty crap comes out, even after brushing, so it’s gotta be better than nothing.
I use a Philips Sonicare toothbrush, no need to get the fancy ones, it’s mostly extra accessories. There are probably less expensive ultrasonic toothbrushes out there that work well… doing it twice a day manually is probably better for you than once a day with a fancy toothbrush.
Hang in there, clinical trials of a drug that regrows teeth are underway and the results are promising.
Floss picks, with a little piece of floss held in a plastic “harp” are so much easier than a spool of loose floss.
I am also told that flossing, while it does remove gunk and food bits, introduces oxygen, which serves to fight off anaerobic bacteria.
I’m going to give those another try. My mouth is tiny and my fingers are stubby (thanks dad! ;-) But you get way more crap out with floss.
Most of the ones you find will have the “handle” parallel to the floss. There are some out there where the handle is perpendicular to the floss, but they’re a bit harder to find on store shelves. I found that the latter make it much easier to get to the back teeth, but I do just fine with the former, too.
Disclaimer: This is not personal medical/dental advice, just my own understanding that I’m sharing.
Floss (or water pick) first, then mouthwash, then brush, then don’t rinse.
Floss to open up the gums and knock loose anything stuck in between teeth. Mouthwash to get rid of the solids and get a bit of fluoride in between teeth. Brushing after mouthwash, because toothpaste typically has a much higher concentration of fluroide than mouthwash does. And avoid rinsing after brushing so you don’t wash away the residual fluoride from the toothpaste.
Sounds logical.
Unless your toothpaste has no fluoride ;-)
If you are truly struggling and need actual dental care, try searching for a local dental school near you. Many will take patients for cheap or free, with the caveat that a dental student will be performing the treatment.
Otherwise, brush at least twice a day and floss. Do not re-use strands of floss, like with those convenient plastic picks. You’ll just be transferring bacteria to each crevice after it’s been used.
Get a water pick (whatever it’s called) - I heard those are great but I don’t have one myself.
Also, in my area, most dentists will allow you to pay over time (like a year+…).
And there are FREE programs like this:
Niagara’s Mobile Dental Clinic
Ask around - you may be surprised.
… Wait, don’t reuse dental floss? Oh no. I thought the point was only to loosen gunk!
Every dentist I’ve had disliked water piks. I had one for a while. Had.
Any particular reason why?
Not the above poster but I’ve had dentists share the same sentiment and mostly I’ve heard it’s because the majority of their patients who use it, use it as a replacement for more thorough dental care–they don’t floss and/or brush because they think they’re getting clean enough with the pik. The dentist who told me this basically said, “It’s fine as a supplement after you brush and after you floss, to flush out any lingering debris from those two activities, but it’s really just not worth the time or money.”
Brush and floss
Disclaimer: I’m a psych nurse not a dental professional, but I’m commenting because my patients are a high-risk demographic for dental disease for a bunch of different reasons including poverty, decreased self-care, and medication side effects (particularly dry mouth and teeth grinding but I’ll get to that) so these are the tips I give to my patients.
Brushing and flossing, obvs. I’m not going to elaborate on this one too much because there’s plenty of actual experts on this that you can find that will explain the ideal techniques much better than I ever could.
Chewing gum and tic tacs / mints that have xylitol (and NO real sugar) in them because xylitol is particularly known to stimulate your salivary glands. Normally we associate increased moisture with bacterial growth, but your saliva is actually slightly antimicrobial and an important part of your oral immune system, so the dryer your mouth is the more hospitable it actually is to bacteria. So while you don’t want to be drooling everywhere, you do want to make sure your mouth is nice and wet most of the time. Both stimulant medications (often given for ADHD) and antidepressants can cause dry mouth.
BUT if you’re straight up eating the xylitol it can have an osmotic laxative effect (pulls water into your gut and makes your shit watery, pretty much all fake sugars do that) so you definitely want to select a xylitol product you can suck on or chew on for an extended period (as opposed to just eating and immediately swallowing like gummy bears or something) to maximize salivary stimulation with the least laxative effect.
It also helps to practice breathing through your nose (which has the added benefit of reducing anxiety), and they even make little sticker thingies to help your mouth stay shut while you sleep. Speaking of which, if you grind your teeth, you’ll also want to wear a mouthguard while you sleep. Grinding your teeth can be caused by a lot of different things but the two biggest things I see are anxiety and certain medications (particularly stimulants and antipsychotics).
And lastly this is kind of anecdotal but the biggest thing that helped my oral hygiene was having to mask at work during the pandemic because I could smell my breath all the time. I had never really been good about routine oral hygiene before that, but I started having to brush my teeth before I left the house every single day to be able to tolerate wearing a mask, and for a while I was even brushing my teeth after lunch, but eventually to save time I switched to mouthwash then I’d head back out on the floor while chewing a sugar free xylitol gum behind my mask.
My yearly dental works always cost a fortune, but my teeth are great now, since:
- I got an electric brush and floss sticks;
- I now drink coffee without sugar (you’ll get used to it pretty quickly);
- I almost completely stopped drinking sugary drinks (mostly bubbly water now, boycotting evil companies and being poor help).
Point one is key! I will add to it, floss of any sort is great. And for my mouth ‘interdental brushes’ do just a little bit more, so the combination has become a key part of my dental routine.
Pick up boxing as a habit.
Cut out soft-drinks in general.
They are not only packed full of sugar, but some very popular ones contain phosphoric acid. If you had to invent an combination of edible ingredients designed to damage tooth enamel, you couldn’t do worse. The fact that this is a diet-friendly option is almost a side-benefit. It’s that bad.
As someone from the Netherlands, where cavities get checked twice a year and filled for a few euros a month, this is actually wild to read.
Do people here overpay insurance that much? Or is this just a business in some other countries? Or is it something else entirely?
Brush and floss just like your dentist tells you. Also use a real mouthwash, like Listerine.
See comment above, but basically, I question whether mouthwash is all that, based on recent research: https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.001830
If you do exactly what your dentist tells you, you should be coming in every 6 months for a checkup…
And your point?
That’s wildly out of the financial means of a lot of us.
OK?
OP was bitching about dentist telling him what to do. Why are you moving the goalposts?
if you find yourself saying that someone asking for advice or help is “bitching” about something, just do everyone (including yourself) a favour and ignore the post and go on with your day.
Sorry, but it just gets more expensive to care for them later. Aim for at least a yearly cleaning/exam so that they can catch issues before they become serious. Twice a year is better.
And find a dentist that is conservative about fillings. My dentist almost never recommends procedures unless there is actual decay, and I trust them to not push work on me that I don’t need.
Bingo.
Pay now, or pay a LOT more later (with a lot more pain, and maybe major issues).
I’ve been there.
I had thousands of dollars of dental work done when I had no insurance and made $15/hr. Talked to the dentist, we worked out a plan to get the crucial stuff done. He didn’t want me leaving without a plan to take care things, despite OP’s implication about dentists being money grubbers.
My father owned a small business, people would sometimes complain he was “cheating them”. His answer - there’s more work than I can do in a day, I don’t need to fuck anyone to make a buck.
Shop around, you can frequently get discounts or cheaper rates if you tell them you’re uninsured / self pay. I’ve had to do this during tough financial times.
There may also be some luxuries or other corners you can safely cut if you go over your budget with a fine toothed comb.
What with the multiple recommendations for a water pick in the comments, lemme drop some aggregated info I’ve gathered about them after asking multiple dentists and hygienists over the last few years while sitting around waiting for various things.
They’re great for what they are, but they aren’t as great as people think they are.
They do definitely work, no doubts, every single one that I talked about them with said that they’ll get the job done.
The problem is that they have a higher learning curve than you’d think, and that means they can cause more trouble than they fix.
See, you’re using the water pressure at an angle because of how you have to hold the pick and move it. The angle that you’ll likely use them at is the wrong one, and this means you are probably going to be shooting the plaque and debris the pick dislodges under your gums.
Obviously, that is not a good thing.
You can definitely learn how to avoid doing that with a bit of research, but most people don’t do that bare minimum research, they just start spraying and then wonder why their gums are bleeding and sore.
So, if you want to invest in a water pick (and tbh, saving the money to pay for a yearly cleaning would be better), make sure you take the time to use it properly. But, they aren’t better than floss at all, so unless you have some reason you can’t floss, why spend the money?
One super easy thing to help a little is swish some water in your mouth after you east/drink. If you’re gonna drink something sugary or acidic, do it quickly, don’t sip it.
i find toothpaste and mouthwash miserable, and this is the advice i got from my dentist as well. Plus getting fluoride pills to suck on to make up for not getting flouride from the toothpaste.
Personally I find them a lot more tolerable if I make sure everything is bubblegum flavor instead of mint so it doesn’t burn.
There isn’t really anything “extra” you can do at home that you aren’t already supposed to be doing to maintain those mouth bones.
They’re not bones.
It’s a turn of phrase, but I appreciate the pedantry.
Flossing and brushing like everyone said, but toothpaste matters I used to swear by the Sensidine with “Novamin” (Calcium sodium phosphosilicate), from what I understand it can actually repair minor damage (e.g. prevent a soft spot from becoming a cavity). Sadly last I checked there was some patient in the US preventing it from being sold here. I brought back a decent bit when I moved back from the UK, but its all gone now. Amazon.co.uk or Boots.co.uk may ship it (but then it becomes legally questionable, I don’t know how close stuff like that is watched for at customs).
