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Caring for my teeth.
billwill
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The last few times I've been to the dentist, he has told me that the gums on my lower front four teeth are receding quickly (too much shit is getting in there and wearing it out), and that if I don't start taking better care of my teeth, bad stuff will happen when I'm 30 or so (I'm 18 now).
I will admit, I've been quite negligent in caring for my teeth, sometimes only brushing once every two days, or just giving it a quick 15 second brush with no toothpaste.
I decided to change, and for the past three days I've been doing a few things. I brush every morning and every night. I have been using a Sonicare, a Waterpik (which I purchased very recently), and some mouthwash. The one thing I am still not doing is flossing, because I find it very difficult to navigate in my mouth (I have huge fingers). Is this fine, since I am using the waterpik? Or should I still do it, albeit at a much lower frequency (like once every two or three days)?
Also, are there any other good dental hygiene tips or tricks out there? I didn't even know about the Waterpik until I read about it in a thread a few days ago.
Thanks.
I will admit, I've been quite negligent in caring for my teeth, sometimes only brushing once every two days, or just giving it a quick 15 second brush with no toothpaste.
I decided to change, and for the past three days I've been doing a few things. I brush every morning and every night. I have been using a Sonicare, a Waterpik (which I purchased very recently), and some mouthwash. The one thing I am still not doing is flossing, because I find it very difficult to navigate in my mouth (I have huge fingers). Is this fine, since I am using the waterpik? Or should I still do it, albeit at a much lower frequency (like once every two or three days)?
Also, are there any other good dental hygiene tips or tricks out there? I didn't even know about the Waterpik until I read about it in a thread a few days ago.
Thanks.
I hate you and you hate me.
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it takes about 3 weeks of doing something every day before it becomes a habit you barely have to think about any more
keep at it. do NOT skip a day
if you're in bed and you think "oh dang i didn't use mouthwash" then GET UP AND DO IT
and honestly you should floss. It's hard to start and there's a reason people liken it to being as difficult to start as cigarettes are to quit. Just use the same method. Force yourself to do it every day and after about 3 weeks you'll do it pretty naturally
I don't personally use a waterpick, and i have no idea how effective they are against flossing
, I brush twice, floss at night, and mouthwash in the morning
edit oh yeah make sure you're massaging your gums, that can help them come back over your teeth
But then I found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floss_pick and now I floss after every brushing. My dental health has gone through the roof.
- Brush before AND after every meal you eat at home.
- Brush before you leave your home, EVERY TIME.
- Brush before you go to bed.
- Brush when you wake up.
If you could do this every day, your teeth will show a noticeable improvement. Also, when you brush, do your gums bleed slightly? Mine used to, and I realized it was because they were incredibly tender, so I would ignore it. That was a BAD idea. Brushing your gums in a clockwise movement lightly, but not too light, works wonders for making them healthier. Even if they start bleeding, eventually they will stop looking so dark red and get a healthy pink.
This is very OCD.
Brush morning and night, and floss at night. Trying to up your intake of vitamins D, A and K2 is also a very good idea as well for dental health.
On the other hand, I have no idea how effective it's been. I haven't been to a dentist in an embarrassingly long time.
My Backloggery
I'm 31 now and nothing terrible has happened. I've always taken decent care of my teeth, it sound like you're on the right track but I'd really try to make flossing work.
Yeah. Brushing 5 times a day or whatever HIGH NOON said is very bad advice. You can actually damage your teeth that way. Thoroughly brushing every single morning and night is fine.
Try to brush after breakfast and leave without rinsing your mouth. At the very least, your breath will be much better.
(Think about it: if you brushed your teeth, then went to sleep, what do you have to clean in the morning? Your teeth aren't sweating in the night like your body might be, or anything.)
"Morning mouth" is the taste of the acid bacteria in your mouth produce when the metabolize organic material in your mouth. It is that acid that degrades your enamel and creates cavities.
Also, if you brush after breakfast it'll get your breakfast out. The fact that dentists don't recommend after every meal is a function of how people's schedules don't allow brushing after lunch.
Yeah, you actually shouldn't have "morning mouth" either, if you're brushing/flossing your teeth really well at night.
Right, I am not talking about brushing after breakfast, you should be doing that. I'm talking about brushing right before bed, and then brushing as soon as you get up in the morning, and then, say, brushing after breakfast (although a lot of people brush as soon as they get up and then not after breakfast).
Brush after breakfast, not both before and after - that's excessive. Again, not a dentist, just going by what I've been told by one.
No but your saliva contains a lot of glycoproteins which bacteria can break down into both a protein source and suger. Since your saliva continually coat your teeth this provides sufficient food for bacteria to grow on, although not enough sugar to actually produce acid in any meaningful amount.
Sleeping basically gives your bacteria ~8 hours of time to recolonize and get ready for the day. Removing them during the morning means they have to start over which means they get a lot less harmful during the day.
Edit: I've never read a study that says if it's better to brush before breakfeast or after it however. I don't think it matters that much, both ways have their benefits.
I work in Dental insurance, and I hear all kinds of horror stories - Like $15,000 in dental bills to fix teeth.
I too have big hands, so my dentist gave me a Floss pick that's on a handle, and it makes it WAY easier, and keeping it out somewhere like the computer desk is really effective - I usually play COD4 after dinner - so I floss while maps load - makes great use of some down time - and gets it out of the way.
I hated flossing. But when I discovered floss picks, I am all over that shit. Floss after EVERY meal, and try to drink water after meals and sodas to wash out the junk. That goes a long way on top of brushing twice a day.
Trust me. Start now, because you are going to get stuck with a 4 figure dentist bill in a big damn hurry if you don't.
Oh yeah, and get comprehensive dental insurance ASAP. Not just the checkup coverage.
My comp. dental insurance through my company is something like 10 dollars per month. It can't be excessively more than that if you purchase as an individual. It saves you mountains of money.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
also, you know - not brushing your teeth is super gross. I know you know this because we were all taught that in Kindergarten.
It will just, in time, become a part of your getting-ready routine. If I go anywhere without brushing my teeth, I feel awkward and gross all day. I do need to get myself to floss, though. Man, I hate flossing.
Brushing helps with more than just your teeth, too! Do you ever wake up and have your throat feel gross? Or swollen? Or do you get those little white things caught in the back? Brushing helps that.
I leave you with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA0yON5bdAU
Brushing also softens the enamel, so eating after brushing is about as bad. What you really want to do is eat right after waking up and brush right before leaving for work. Unless you're a dentist, in which case you'll want to follow High Noon's advice because you'll be in people's faces all day and they can't escape the smell.
It's probably on the iPhone too but I've only ever used the version for my droid.
you're supposed to brush after every meal, but most dentists realize that's almost impossible and then go "at least twice a day"
edit: huh apparently a dental student said not to do this? I've had dentists tell me this for years
This video is making me vomit rainbows
I better go brush my teeth...
Play with me on Steam
You shouldn't be doing it immediately afterward, but the timeframe we're talking about is between ten and fifteen minutes.
According to my dentist, no.
There are procedures to graft gums onto the receded areas though.
or at the very least having something to eat or rinsing your mouth thoroughly with water
letting coca cola or similar drinks sit on your teeth for several hours is baaaaad for them
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/03/reversing-tooth-decay.html
Reversing Tooth Decay
In the last post, I discussed the research of Drs. Edward and May Mellanby on the nutritional factors affecting tooth formation. Dr. Mellanby is the man who discovered vitamin D and identified the cause of rickets. Nutrition has a profound effect on tooth structure, and well-formed teeth are inherently resistant to decay. But is there anything you can do if your teeth are already formed?
Teeth are able to heal themselves. That's how traditional cultures such as the Inuit can wear their teeth down to the pulp due to chewing leather and sand-covered dried fish, yet still have an exceptionally low rate of tooth decay. It's also how the African Wakamba tribe can file their front teeth into sharp points without causing decay. Both cultures lost their resistance to tooth decay after adopting nutrient-poor Western foods such as white flour and sugar.
Teeth are made of four layers. Enamel is the hardest, most mineralized outer shell. Dentin is another protective mineralized layer that's below the enamel. Below the dentin is the pulp, which contains blood vessels and nerves. The roots are made of cementum, another mineralized tissue.
When enamel is poorly formed and the diet isn't adequate, enamel dissolves and decay sets in. Tooth decay is an opportunistic infection that takes advantage of poorly built or maintained teeth. If the diet remains inadequate, the tooth has to be filled or removed, or the person risks more serious complications.
Fortunately, a decaying or broken tooth has the ability to heal itself. Pulp contains cells called odontoblasts, which form new dentin if the diet is good. Here's what Dr. Edward Mellanby had to say about his wife's research on the subject. This is taken from Nutrition and Disease:
Thus, in dogs, the factors that affect tooth healing are the same factors that affect tooth development:
What about humans? Drs. Mellanby set out to see if they could use their dietary principles to cure tooth decay that was already established. They divided 62 children with cavities into three different diet groups for 6 months. Group 1 ate their normal diet plus oatmeal (rich in phytic acid). Group 2 ate their normal diet plus vitamin D. Group 3 ate a grain-free diet and took vitamin D.
In group 1, oatmeal prevented healing and encouraged new cavities, presumably due to its ability to prevent mineral absorption. In group 2, simply adding vitamin D to the diet caused most cavities to heal and fewer to form. The most striking effect was in group 3, the group eating a grain-free diet plus vitamin D, in which nearly all cavities healed and very few new cavities developed. Grains are the main source of phytic acid in the modern diet, although we can't rule out the possibility that grains were promoting tooth decay through another mechanism as well.
Dr. Mellanby was quick to point out that diet 3 was not low in carbohydrate or even sugar: "Although [diet 3] contained no bread, porridge or other cereals, it included a moderate amount of carbohydrates, for plenty of milk, jam, sugar, potatoes and vegetables were eaten by this group of children." This study was published in the British Medical Journal (1932, 1: 507) and the British Dental journal. Here's Dr. Edward Mellanby again:
Dr. Mellanby first began publishing studies showing the reversal of cavities in humans in 1924. Why has such a major medical finding, published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, faded into obscurity?
Dr. Weston Price also had success curing tooth decay using a similar diet. He fed underprivileged children one very nutritious meal a day and monitored their dental health. From Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (p. 290):
Dr. Price provides before and after X-rays showing re-calcification of cavity-ridden teeth on this program. His intervention was not exactly the same as Drs. Mellanby, but it was similar in many ways. Both diets were high in minerals, rich in fat-soluble vitamins (including D), and low in phytic acid.
Price's diet was not grain-free, but used rolls made from freshly ground whole wheat. Freshly ground whole wheat has a high phytase (the enzyme that degrades phytic acid) activity, thus in conjunction with the long yeast rises common in Price's time, it would have broken down nearly all of its own phytic acid. This would have made it a source of minerals rather than a sink for them. He also used high-vitamin pastured butter in conjunction with cod liver oil. We now know that the vitamin K2 in pastured butter is important for bone and tooth development and maintenance. This was something that Dr. Mellanby did not understand at the time, but modern science has corroborated Price's finding that K2 is synergistic with vitamin D in promoting skeletal and dental health.
If I were to design the ultimate dietary program to heal cavities that incorporates the successes of both doctors, it would look something like this:
This diet would maximize mineral absorption while providing abundant fat-soluble vitamins. It probably isn't necessary to follow it strictly. For example, if you eat more mineral-rich foods such as dairy and bone broths, you can probably get away with more phytic acid. Or you might be able to heal cavities eating like this for only one or two meals a day, as Dr. Price demonstrated.
Actually, as Soxbox pointed out, you don't want to finish a coke or something like that and rush straight for the toothbrush.
Rinsing with water, though, yes. Absolutely a very good idea after drinking something very acidic, or sugary.
Also, that's not how cavities work. Almost all cavities start as a small hole in which the bacteria are protected and the acidity doesn't dispel. The hole gets deeper until it reaches the tooth's interior and the bacteria goes hog wild, "eating" the tooth from the inside out. Also, cavities almost always start at pit an fissures rather than smooth surfaces, so sharpening ones teeth gets rid of the pits. For all we know, the groups that are wearing away their enamel are sanding their teeth smooth, thereby ensuring that the bacteria cannot gain a foothold.
If you actually read it, you'll notice that diet 3 was not in any way low carb. None of the groups were actually. So no, that would not account for anything.
And diet 2 had almost as impressive results, simply by adding vitamin D to the diet. So abandoning grains is not a must do here. Get a good daily dose of fat soluble vitamins - Vit D, K2-MK4, and A and you'll get far fewer teeth and gum problems.
Diet composition also has a HUGE effect on malocclusion (how your teeth are aligned and whatnot - i.e. "good teeth and bad teeth").
If you're really interested in the subject check out Weston Price's Nutrition and Physical Degradation.
I assume you're not talking to me here because what I posted does not address how cavities are initially formed.
Most of the carbs a person eats will come from bread, so cutting out bread will lower the amount of carbs consumed, at least initially. Basically, I doubt that "white flour" is a nutritional problem.
The second part was just a note that tooth wear doesn't directly lead to cavities.
I've actually had it done because my braces somehow managed to screw up the gums in front of my bottom front teeth. They just sliced a bit of flesh from the roof of my mouth and sutured it to the problem spot, and it seems to be holding on.
Err... white flour is fucking horrible for you.
seconded
lots of people forget this
a lot of gunky shit builds up on your tongue and can be a contributing factor to the cause bad breath