Brushing Your Teeth Often?
Twice a day is the recommendation of the American Dental Association. It also advises the use of fluoride toothpaste to clean and protect the teeth effectively.
Brushing helps in removing food and plaque. After eating, the harmful organisms in plaque produce acids that can destroy the tooth enamel. If left untreated, the acid attacks can cause breaking down of tooth enamel, leading to cavities.
If dental plaque isn’t removed, it can calcify and turn into tartar, which is harder to remove through brushing and flossing alone. It requires a dental professional cleaning.
The timing is also vital when brushing. If you’ve consumed a highly acidic meal, it’s best to wait for half an hour before you brush. The reason for this is that the acids in the meal can weaken tooth enamel. If you brush immediately, it can rub the enamel and remove it.
The Duration
It’s not enough to just brush your teeth. The length of time for brushing is also crucial for your oral health. The duration must be at least two minutes. In this way, you can be sure that you’ve covered all areas of your mouth and teeth that require cleaning.
When you visit Sunny Smiles Dentistry for Children and Young Adults, our dental hygienist will teach you the proper way of brushing and give you more advice on how to take care of your dental health.
The Use of Electric Toothbrush
Both types of brushes are effective in cleaning your teeth. However, if you have a hard time achieving the two-minute brushing duration; it might be best to invest in an electric toothbrush. You’ll find it easier to brush your teeth with it.
Then again, if you wish to stick to a manual toothbrush, ensure that you’re brushing all surfaces of your teeth and use fluoride toothpaste.
What to look for in a brush?
It’s ideal to opt for a brush with a small head and soft bristles. Ask your dentist about the best toothbrush for you.
What’s great about using a powered brush is that it has a rotating head that works better than having a manual toothbrush.
But the type of brush is less important than how often you brush your teeth. Regardless of the brush you’re using, make sure to clean your teeth twice a day.
How about toothpaste?
Opt for toothpaste with the right amount of fluoride. Always check the label to know how much fluoride is in the product. It’s vital to use a product with 1,350 parts per million of fluoride. But, as always, talk to your dentist about the right fluoride toothpaste that works best for you.
Your children may not need a kid’s toothpaste. They can use family toothpaste. However, children who are six years old or under, they should use a lower-strength toothpaste. Their dentist will advise what toothpaste to use.
To further prevent tooth decay, you may wish to use mouthwash with fluoride. After using it, however, don’t eat or drink for half an hour. In this way, the fluoride content in the mouth rinse will have sufficient time to attach to the tooth enamel.
Should I Brush My Teeth More Often?
“How often should I brush my teeth” is a common question that we get from our patients at Sunny Smiles Dentistry for Children and Young Adults.
All of us have been brushing our teeth for decades or years. Unfortunately, not all of us know the proper way of brushing. Did you know that it takes two minutes to brush your teeth properly? Most American adults don’t brush their teeth that long.
How often should you brush your teeth will depend on how often do you eat in a day. However, you must brush at least twice a day using a fluoride toothpaste. It’s important to do it first thing in the morning and before bedtime.
After brushing, you need to floss. If you can’t floss during the day, make sure that you do before going to bed.
You must also reduce the number of times you consume snacks each day. In this way, you don’t have to brush and floss often.
Is it possible to over brush?
Yes, it is. However, it depends on your technique and the brush itself. No matter how often you clean your teeth in a day, you must make sure that you’re brushing your teeth properly, and you’re using the right toothbrush.
Toothbrush bristles tend to wear way with use. When it does, it becomes like a knife. That is, it will have jagged edges.
It’s estimated that more than 50 percent of us are over brushing. It’s not about how often you brush but it’s about brushing incorrectly with the wrong toothbrush.
Some of our patients brush away their tooth structure. Surely, too much of a good thing is bad enough for your teeth.
If you only use the right techniques in brushing and utilize high-quality toothbrush, you won’t have to worry about cleaning frequently. In addition to that, there’s no such thing as flossing too much. There’s only flossing too little.
When to brush your teeth?
Although it’s highly recommended to brush after every meal, you should consider your diet. For example, if you consume acidic food, you should not brush your teeth right away. Instead, wait for 30 minutes or an hour before you do so.
Acidic foods can weaken your tooth enamel. If you brush too soon, the acid can remove the tooth enamel.
We recommend our patients to rinse their mouth after eating acidic foods. Then, they must floss daily. If it ’s possible, floss after every meal.
Eating a healthy diet is also necessary. And, as mentioned earlier, you should limit snack consumption.
Because your toothbrush can wear away with time, you should replace it every three months or sooner, especially if its bristles are getting frayed.
Then, don’t forget to schedule regular dental checkups.
At your dentist’s clinic, your dentist will recommend a professional cleaning every six months. This cleaning method removes hard deposits from your teeth that regular cleaning and flossing can’t remove.
Professional dental cleaning will also prevent gum disease. If your teeth are healthy, you should have your teeth professionally cleaned twice a year. However, if you have a medical condition that affects your oral health, it must be done more often.
How Often Should I Floss?
Flossing has become an integral part of making sure that your teeth and gums are healthy. But how often should I floss?
Twice a day is the number of times you must floss as recommended by the American Dental Association. This is enough to help eliminate plaque in between your teeth and areas that your toothbrush can’t reach.
In addition to removing food debris in between your teeth, flossing will also prevent gum disease and build up of cavities.
But just because you floss doesn’t meant that you won’t get cavities. It still depends on how you did the “job” of flossing.
Frequency Versus Effectiveness
At Sunny Smiles Dentistry for Children and Young Adults clinic, we teach our patients how to properly floss to effectively remove the plaque in between their teeth. Even though our patients would tell us that they floss after brushing, we sometimes wouldn’t guess it.
Why? Because they’re doing it the wrong way. Even if you floss more than thrice a day if none of your efforts involves effective technique, it still won’t prevent you from getting cavities. That said, you may still suffer from oral health issues.
The Best Time to Floss
There’s no best time to floss. The most important thing here is to do it and do it the right way.
However, flossing before sleeping is a good idea. Well, it’s always a good idea to thoroughly clean your mouth before going to bed at night.
The reason for this is that saliva production is reduced during this time, thereby, minimizing its benefits in combating bacteria and byproducts of teeth and gums.
Should You Floss Before or After Brushing?
It won’t matter. However, we do recommend flossing after brushing. At this time, items, like plaque and debris, have already been removed.
And that flossing will further remove those that have dislodged and harboring near your teeth.
We also recommend swishing your mouth with water or non-alcohol mouthwash after flossing.
Can Mouthwash Replace the Benefits of Flossing?
Unfortunately, it can’t and it will never be. Mouthwash and flossing are two different things. Although the former is easier to do than the latter, you should find time to floss after every brush.
It’s true that flossing can sometimes be tedious and frustrating. However, as you’ve mastered the art of flossing, it’ll no longer be difficult to do so. If you get bored when you floss, we suggest doing some activities that you can do while flossing. For instance, you can watch TV or movie while you floss.
The Type of Floss
Waxed or unwaxed, it won’t matter. The main point here is that you floss.
But we do recommend the use of yarn-like floss if the spaces in between your teeth are quite large. Waxed and
Teflon, on the other hand, are ideal for tight spaces.
When you visit our clinic for a dental checkup, we’ll also teach you the proper way to floss to effectively eliminate food debris from your teeth. In this way, you’ll no longer have to suffer from dental problems again.