Oral Hygiene

Brushing

• Why?

  • Remove plaque

    • Can lead to gingivitis

  • Prevent tooth decay

    • Can lead to cavitities

      • Holes in the tooth that can lead to tooth loss

  • Bacteria from your mouth can make its way into your bloodstream and increase you chance of a heart attack or stroke.

  • Serious gum disease can affect body’s ability to control blood glucose, leading to diabetes

  • White teeth

• Dentists: 2 times per day for 2 minutes

  • Helps remove more plaque

    • Study: 45 seconds to 2 minutes resulted in 26% less plaque

    • Study: 1 minute removed 27% of plaque, 2 minutes remove 41% of plaque

• Some people on Reddit do it weekly, or “whenever they feel dirty”

• Brush tongue a few times to remove bad breath

• If brushing after a meal and it had citrus/acid (like coffee) wait before brushing

  • Some say wait an hour, others say 15-20 minutes

  • Brushing after citrus can remove enamel

  • Can rinse mouth before brushing teeth, to help with this

  • If you can’t wait an hour, then try brushing before eating/drinking

  • If you can’t wait an hour, rinse mouth and do gum/mints

• Use a light touch while brushing

  • If bristles of brush are flattened, that means you’re brushing too hard

  • Don’t scrub; massage the teeth

• Toothbrush

  • Bristles need to be soft (in order to get in crannies well)

• How To

  • Up-and-down in little circular motions

  • Don’t go side to side

  • A few brushes per area, then sweep away from gums to sweep away plaque you loosened up

  • For front teeth, turn toothbrush vertically and do up-and-down circular motions

  • Brush tongue from back to front to remove bacteria from tongue

• Don’t rinse after brushing

  • Lowers the concentration of fluoride

  • Fluoride strengthens tooth enamel

  • Fluoride reduces the amount of acid that bacteria on teeth produce

  • Most places say don’t even do mouthwash after rinsing

    • Some do say that it can be an alternative to water

• Make sure to get the gum line

  • AKA where the tooth meets the gum

  • Use 45-degree angle to do so

• Some experts say brushing before you eat breakfast is vastly more beneficial for your tooth enamel and overall oral health. (source)

• Eating too soon after brushing your teeth can weaken your tooth’s enamel and cause more problems down the line. (source)

  • As a general rule, wait 30 minutes after brushing teeth to eat

  • Eating after brushing washes away fluoride

• Brushing your teeth before you have coffee removes plaque buildup and makes it more difficult for stains to adhere, said Christina Meiners, a dentist at the nonprofit CommuniCare Health Centers in San Antonio. “If you keep it nice and clean, then there’s less for [coffee] to grab onto your teeth or adhere to,” Meiners said. (source)

• Can rinse w/ water after coffee to neutralize the acidity level

• Electric toothbrushes are 30-40% more effective than normal ones (source: estimation from my dentist)

• It's OK to occasionally skip a brushing, since it takes about 24 hours for plaque and bacteria to form on your teeth. (source)

Toothpaste

• The "whitening" toothpastes don't really whiten the way white strips do. The toothpaste whitening just polishes away surface enamel stains. (source)

Mouthwash

Bottomline: Not going to use it. Seems like a super-optimizing thing that I don’t need if I do everything else correctly

• Don’t need it if you’re brushing and flossing correctly

• Can help with breath (could use it after lunch)

• Even if you did want to add it to your routine, it’d have to be after you brush your teeth, which washes away fluoride (so fluoride can no longer have its preventative effects

• The ingredients in each mouthwash formula vary slightly — different products work for different purposes.

• Research shows that mouthwash does help prevent plaque and gingivitis. But since formulas differ greatly and using mouthwash is tied closely to a good oral hygiene routine in general, it’s hard to definitively say how much it helps or which formula is best.

• Mouthwash kills bacteria by using antiseptic ingredients like alcohol, menthol, and eucalyptol. These ingredients get into the crevices between your teeth and hard-to-reach places like the very back of your mouth, killing the filmy bacteria that can collect there.

• If you have open sores or oral lesions in your mouth, you might want to try using mouthwash to kill bacteria and speed healing.

• Its job is mostly about making your mouth “feel” fresh. “You don’t need mouthwash, but if you enjoy it, or you have bad breath and feel it helps, then there’s no substantiated risks to rinsing once or twice a day,” he says.

• Biggest benefit is clean breath and feeling

• Has the ability to get into places your toothbrush doesn’t (top of mouth, back of cheeks, etc.)

• Some say don’t use after brushing, some say do use after brushing to get the rest

  • Some even say use water instead (contradicting advice about on not rinsing after brushing)

  • “some dentifrice ingredients (like calcium hydroxide or aluminum hydroxide) can form a complex with fluoride ions and reduce a mouthwash’s effectiveness. Therefore, vigorous rinsing with water may be recommended after brushing and before rinsing if these ingredients are present.”

• There are two basic kinds of mouthwashes, the kind that just temporarily freshens your breath (cosmetic) and the kind that addresses oral health problems (therapeutic). In general, products marketed as “mouthwashes” are cosmetic and “rinses” tend to be therapeutic, but this isn’t always the case.

Notes

• Rinse your mouth after sugary or starchy snacks (source)

• Rinse your mouth vigorously after eating anything

• Commonly said that diet is a big factor in long term oral hygiene/health

Links