Dentists of the world, I hate to break it to you, but.....none of us floss. Seriously. Yet for some reason we give in to all of the fancy whitening strips and charcoal toothpastes with all of the bells and whistles that come with it. Here's why we should probably stop.
u/you-gee-el-why asked: Dentists and Dental Care Professionals of Reddit, what oral hygiene products out there are gimmicks, and what are some underrated products that people should use more often?
Gum is good....except when it's not.
Xylitol (usually found in gum) is good for generating more saliva, which helps your natural defenses against bacteria (by washing out debris from your mouth). Just don't chew gum so consistently that it f*cks up your TMJ (temporomandibular joint).
You're not joking about the TMJ thing. Started chewing gum more after meals. Mouth feels nice... jaw doesn't.
Sound advice.
GiphyDentist here, another thing nobody has mentioned: if you ever puke, don't brush right afterwards since the pH of your stomach acid can temporarily soften your teeth and you can then damage your teeth when you brush. Instead you should rinse with a baking soda solution to neutralize the acid. and then you can brush your teeth maybe 30-60 minutes later.
Also, I agree. Use electric toothbrush, brand doesn't matter as long as it is a real one that doesn't use a AA battery. Also use real string floss every day. Lastly, cavities come from FREQUENCY of sugar exposure, not AMOUNT of sugar exposure, so sipping a soda/juice/Gatorade/Redbull for hours is much worse than drinking it in five minutes.
Edit: by "real" toothbrush, I mean a Sonicare or Oral B, not one of those $5 jobs from the grocery store that you put a AA battery into.
Definitely do this.
Dentist here, imagine if I offered you $10,000 to paint a wall white with no imperfections but you have to wear a blindfold. How would you approach this? The best method to do this would be to start in one corner and work methodically to the other corner to ensure you don't miss spots.
This is also how you brush, you can't see what you're doing so the best method to avoid missing spots is to start on one molar and work your way to the other one in the arch, then do the other arch.
That being said, please go to the dentist every six months. It will help you get the spots you miss consistently as well as screen you for other oral diseases.
Activated charcoal nonsense.
Dental nurse here! Anything 'activated charcoal' is nonsense. Black toothpaste is no more beneficial than normal toothpaste. As long as your toothpaste has fluoride, it's doing its job.
Floss 'alternatives' are gimmicks. Most are intended to be used in conjunction with floss, not instead of. Just floss, it's the most effective.
Electric toothbrushes are your friend, but regardless of electric/manual, make sure it's soft bristled.
Brush your dog's teeth!
GiphyI'm a vet, and used to work in clinical practice, so obligatory "not a dentist" but a significant proportion of chews, supplements, pastes, droplets etc marketed to improve your dog's teeth/breath/tartar/etc are unlikely to do much.
Speak to your vet about teeth brushing though - there's actually some data on that being effective if done a few times a week. Oh, and hard kibble tends to be better than soft pouches/tins.
Didn't even know this.
If you aren't already tongue scraping, you should be. Absolutely most underrated oral hygiene product that most people don't even know about. You will NEVER have bad breath again because you scrape that nasty ass white coat your tongue keeps dressing up in right off! And even if you aren't a smoker you will cough up so much sh*t right after because that nice little phlegm blanket you just spat out was holding back it's buddies in your throat who are now FREE.
Seriously you will never be able to go back, go try scraping your tongue with a spoon right now (which isn't as effective but will convince you to drive to the store right this godd*mn second to get yourself the real deal) and see how good a clean mouth finally feels.
Trickery is best.
Not the professionals in question.
When I had my wisdom teeth surgically removed, the guy gave me two pills and told me they "won't put you to sleep, but they'll numb the pain and make you calm enough to forget the whole thing. He gave me two more to take at home, and asked me to wait in the lobby for an hour.
Surgery went ok, but I was fully alert and aware... Yet very calm. They wrenched my head around a bunch and drilled and poked and pulled things. Screwdrivers were used as chisels. Blood was suctioned. Still calm.
At home, I actually looked at the bottle. Those four pills had just been plain Atasol. Not even the f*cking codeine kind. He tricked me.
Many years later, I happily recommend trickery.
Problem solved.
GiphyNot a pro but had been having bleeding-while-brushing issues for awhile. Dentist just said make sure to brush and floss but I was doing that already. Read up on it and found out that the oral microbiome is a thing.
Ditched my detergent/foaming agent-filled toothpaste for Zendium (European brand) and Carifree (American brand but formulated to keep PH in the mouth where it should be and uses the ingredient - hydroxyapatite - that most of Japan uses instead of fluoride). Note that both do have fluoride, I just wanted to try the hydroxyapatite as an experiment. Also switched to an X-Pur once a week high-fluoride, alcohol-free, PH balancing mouthwash.
Took about a week and I haven't had bleeding gums since (started new regimen about 6 months ago). Dentist was all blown away at my last checkup and asked what I was doing.
Ofc I use 3 new products so I can't be sure if it's one of them alone or some combo of the three or just the absence of the harsher ingredients. But it's working very well, this is the first time I've had no bleeding issues since I was about 15.
EDIT: I forgot to add that I also no longer rinse my mouth with water after brushing. Just spit and go about my day. That's apparently becoming a thing, my dentist says it mean the fluoride doesn't just immediately get washed away and can hang out in your mouth for awhile to do good stuff to your teefies.
That should go without saying.
Don't do meth. Saliva is used to control the pH of your mouth, and doing meth often reduces the amount of saliva in your mouth. Since your mouth's pH becomes off, bacteria can easily grow on the part of your teeth next to your tongue, and eventually this area erodes and the tooth breaks off.
Important.
Mouthwash/mouth rinse!
When it says it kills bacteria it means for when you use it, bacteria returns in the next 10 minutes.
Basically it makes things feel fresh but nothing else, only regular manual removal (brushing and flossing, can be electric toothbrush) of plaque and food will clean your teeth and reduce bacteria.
I work as a dental assistant for a periodontist i.e. specialists in gum disease and oral hygiene.
(Also mouth rinse after a surgery/procedure is necessary when you can't brush the area, this is the exception).
People Share Facts Everyone Believes To Be True But Are Actually Totally False
There are plenty of "facts" that everyone thinks are true just because of the sheer number of times they've heard them repeated. The illusory truth effect, also known as the reiteration effect, shows that repeated statements are easier to process than new ones and people tend to believe things that they hear repeated often.
This can lead to believing some pretty wild things that can be fairly obviously false if you stop to really think about it. Below are some excellent examples of this phenomenon.
Reddit user u/HaseebM1 asked:
10.
That aquarium fish only live a few months.
My coworker was astonished that my fish had been alive for years and still had years left in them. When I told him it was because they had a big enough tank, a filter and water changes, he commented that that was way too much for a fish that won't live 3 months....big dumb circle of a conversation.
Too add onto this comment it is not true that fish will grow to the size of the tank. For example if you put a goldfish in a 10 gallon tank, yes, it will be smaller but, its organs don't stop growing and they die a slow horrible death.
Research the fish you get to make sure you can provide a good life for them!
9.
Cutting an earthworm in half won't make two worms. It'll just give one worm a very good reason to be angry.
8.
That brushing your teeth twice a day is all you need to prevent cavities. Actually, it's just as important to always have saliva in your mouth.
My dentist blamed my cavities on me sleeping in front on a fan with my mouth open.
7.
That houseplants use a dangerous amount of oxygen at night and therefor shouldn't be put in (children's) bedrooms. They use less than one tenth of what they produce during the day. If they'd use more our planet would be in deep trouble and humans wouldn't have existed.
5.
That most Europeans thought the world was flat in 1491.
The Greek scholar Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of a spherical Earth around 200BC, to a surprisingly accurate degree. He's also credited with effectively inventing Geography.
4.
'If you put a nail in a tree, in the future it will be higher up as the tree grows.'
I have seen this on far too many tv shows, this is not how trees work. Trees accumulate height at the top annually while the rest of the tree grows in diameter.
3.
People think when you hit a higher tax bracket your entire income is taxed at the higher rate.
If the bracket changes at 40k and you make 40,001. The only amount hat gets taxed at the new rate is that last dollar.
2.
That different parts of your tongue are made for different tastes, I think the front is salty and the middle is sweet or something idk. I remember learning it in primary school, and Then when I grew older I asked my science teacher, she said it was false.
What? I remember doing that thing where you put q-tips into different flavored water (Sugar, Salt, Lemon, Grapefruit juice, tabasco,...) and then make a "map" of where you taste something...
...and it worked.
Guess a strong believe in something can make it seem real.
Every time I did that it never worked but every time I said "I can't tell the difference" I'd get ostracised by my peers.
1.
That you are "left-brained" or "right-brained". This was an old theory (Galaburda-Geschwind model) which tried to argue that this is why women are more emotional whilst men are more rational. It's a load of horsepoop.
I'm always immediately wary with anyone who prides themselves on being "logical", or think that logic and emotions are somehow yin-yang type opposites, because nine times out of ten they equate "logical" with "infallible", and as a result they're the most insufferably smug know-it-all douchebags you'll ever meet.