Oral Hygiene Good Oral Hygiene Helps Pre­vent Peri­odon­tal Disease

Keep­ing your teeth and gums clean is very impor­tant to the pre­ven­tion of peri­odon­tal dis­ease. This pre­ven­tion requires reg­u­lar vis­its to your den­tist, and reg­u­lar brush­ing and floss­ing. But it doesn’t do you much good if you’re not brush­ing and floss­ing your teeth cor­rectly and daily.

The pur­pose of brush­ing and floss­ing is to remove the soft plaque and food at the gum line around all areas of teeth while the plaque is still soft. If not removed, the soft plaque hard­ens and forms cal­cu­lus or tar­tar above and below the gums. At this point the cal­cu­lus is too hard and too deep under the gums for removal by brush­ing and floss­ing and now must be removed at the den­tal office.

Fol­low our help­ful point­ers below in order to get the most out of oral pre­ven­ta­tive care, includ­ing advice on car­ing for sen­si­tive teeth and choos­ing the right hygiene products.

How to Brush

There are dif­fer­ent cor­rect vari­a­tions on how to brush your teeth. Here is one rec­om­mended variation.

Brush at least twice a day, morn­ing and at bed­time. You can brush more times a day if you wish. Use a soft bris­tled tooth brush, where the bris­tles have not sep­a­rated too much.

While brush­ing the out­side sur­faces of your teeth, posi­tion the brush at a 45-degree angle to where your gums and teeth meet. Gen­tly move the brush in a cir­cu­lar motion sev­eral times using small, gen­tle strokes. Use light pres­sure while putting the bris­tles between the teeth, but not so much pres­sure that you feel any dis­com­fort. When you are done clean­ing the out­side sur­faces of all your teeth, fol­low the same direc­tions while clean­ing the inside sur­faces of all your back teeth.

To clean the inside sur­faces of the upper and lower front teeth, hold the brush ver­ti­cally. Make sev­eral gen­tle back-and-forth strokes over each tooth. Don’t for­get to gen­tly brush the sur­round­ing gum tis­sue. Next you will clean the bit­ing sur­faces of your teeth. To do this use short, gen­tle strokes. Change the posi­tion of the brush as often as nec­es­sary to reach and clean all sur­faces. Try to watch your­self in the mir­ror to make sure you clean each sur­face. After you are done, rinse vig­or­ously to remove any plaque you might have loos­ened while brushing.

If you have any pain while brush­ing or have any ques­tions about how to brush prop­erly, please be sure to call the office.

How to Brush

How to Floss

Floss a min­i­mum of once daily, prefer­ably with your last brush­ing of the day, and after your last meal of the day. Use waxed floss for tight areas between teeth to pre­vent the floss from breaking.

Since many peo­ple don’t floss daily and reg­u­larly, peri­odon­tal dis­ease usu­ally appears between the teeth where your tooth­brush can­not reach. Floss­ing is a very effec­tive way to remove plaque from between teeth. How­ever, it is impor­tant to develop the proper tech­nique. The fol­low­ing instruc­tions will help you, but remem­ber it takes time and prac­tice to develop the habit of floss­ing correctly.

Start with a piece of floss (waxed is eas­ier) about 18″ long. Lightly wrap most of the floss around the mid­dle fin­ger of one hand. Wrap the rest of the floss around the mid­dle fin­ger of the other hand.

To clean the upper teeth, hold the floss tightly between the thumb and fore­fin­ger of each hand. Gen­tly insert the floss tightly between the teeth using a back-and-forth motion. Do not force the floss or try to snap it in to place. Bring the floss to the gum line then curve it into a C-shape against one tooth. Slide it into the space between the gum and the tooth until you feel light resis­tance. Move the floss up and down on the side of one tooth. Remem­ber there are two tooth sur­faces that need to be cleaned in each space. Con­tinue to floss each side of all the upper teeth. Be care­ful not to cut the gum tis­sue between the teeth. As the floss becomes soiled, turn from one fin­ger to the other to get a fresh section.

To clean between the bot­tom teeth, guide the floss using the fore­fin­ger of both hands. Do not for­get the back side of the last tooth on both sides, upper and lower.

When you are done, rinse vig­or­ously with water to remove plaque and food par­ti­cles. Do not be alarmed if dur­ing the first week of floss­ing your gums bleed or are a lit­tle sore. If your gums hurt while floss­ing you could be doing it too hard or pinch­ing the gum. As you floss daily and remove the plaque your gums will heal and the bleed­ing should stop.

For those peo­ple that find it hard to manip­u­late and man­age the floss cor­rectly, floss aids are avail­able at your phar­macy. Ask us or your den­tist about these aids.

How to Floss

Car­ing for Sen­si­tive Teeth

Some­times after den­tal treat­ment, teeth are sen­si­tive to hot and cold. This sen­si­tiv­ity should not last long, but only if the mouth is kept clean. If the mouth is not kept clean the sen­si­tiv­ity will remain and could become more severe. If your teeth are espe­cially sen­si­tive con­sult with your den­tist. A med­icated tooth­paste or mouth rinse made espe­cially for sen­si­tive teeth may be recommended.

Choos­ing Oral Hygiene Products

There are so many hygiene prod­ucts on the mar­ket that it can become con­fus­ing and over­whelm­ing try­ing to choose the right one. Here are some sug­ges­tions for choos­ing den­tal care prod­ucts that will work for most patients.

Elec­tronic Toothbrushes

Auto­matic and “high-tech” elec­tronic tooth­brushes are safe and effec­tive for the major­ity of patients, if used prop­erly. Oral irri­ga­tors (water spray­ing devices) will rinse your mouth thor­oughly, but will not remove plaque. You need to brush and floss in addi­tion to the irri­ga­tor. We see excel­lent results with elec­tric tooth­brushes, if used cor­rectly and consistently .

Brushing with an Electric Toothbrush

Some tooth­brushes have a rub­ber tip on the han­dle; this is used to mas­sage the gums after brush­ing. There are also tiny brushes (inter­prox­i­mal tooth­brushes such as Prox­i­brushes) that clean between your teeth, when there are suf­fi­cient spaces between your teeth. If these are used improp­erly you could injure the gums, so dis­cuss proper use with your dentist.

Flu­o­ride tooth­pastes and Mouth Rinses

Both of these, if used in con­junc­tion with brush­ing and floss­ing, can reduce tooth decay as much as 40%. Remem­ber, rinses are not rec­om­mended for chil­dren under six years of age. Tar­tar con­trol tooth­pastes will reduce tar­tar above the gum line and gin­givi­tis, but peri­odon­tal dis­ease starts below the gum line so these prod­ucts have not been proven to reduce peri­odon­tal disease.

Your den­tist or peri­odon­tist is the best per­son to help you select the right prod­ucts that are best for you.

Pro­fes­sional Cleaning

Daily brush­ing and floss­ing will keep den­tal cal­cu­lus or tar­tar to a min­i­mum, but a pro­fes­sional clean­ing or other type of treat­ment is needed to remove cal­cu­lus in places your tooth­brush and floss have missed. Visit your peri­odon­tist, as he or she is an impor­tant part of your pro­gram to pre­vent and treat gum disease.