BRUSH YOUR TEETH AND SAVE MONEY

In this post I don’t mean to show you how to brush your teeth properly, since there are plenty of teaching materials at your dental clinic. I will give you reasons for brushing your teeth daily.

#1 Reduce biofilm brushing your teeth

I use to tell my patients that we aren’t taught about how to brush our teeth properly. Nevertheless, this habit is changing fortunately, since more and more people are already aware of the fact that there is an immense bacteria population in our oral cavity, known as biofilm.

#2 Prevent tooth decay brushing your teeth

Caries feed on food debris trapped between the teeth; when doing this, they produce a waste that lowers the mouth’s pH and acidifies the oral cavity. Teeth cannot stand it for a long time, so that is the main reason why they start to demineralize and caries appear.

#3 Protect your mouth: teeth, gums and bone

Poor oral hygiene produces a greater amount of tartar, which irritates gums and increases bacterial growth. These bacteria attach to the tooth surface and produce toxins that affect gums and the bone. These must be enough reasons to worship our toothbrush! But we should take into account other factors that make things difficult, such as:

• Even if you are a skilled “tooth-brusher”, you can only control 80% of the problems affecting your mouth; the remaining 20% can only be controlled by a professional dentist. That’s the reason why your dentist recommends to visit him/her at least twice a year.
• Another important factor is how much time we spend brushing our teeth. Numerous studies show that brushing your teeth should take 2 minutes or more.
• The frequency of tooth-brushing is as important as the time spent, the technique and the kind brush. For this reason, it is advisable to brush your teeth after every meal.
• Brushing your teeth continuously can be a hassle, so we recommend doing it three times a day: when we wake up in the morning, after having lunch and before going to sleep.

The reason of all this has to do with the fact that the flow of saliva is reduced and teeth loose part of this natural protection during the night, which implies caries growth – this is the reason our morning breath is so unpleasant. Therefore, you can keep your oral health on point if you brush your teeth every night, because it reduces bacterial growth and prevents from caries. You can also reinforce this last two aspects by brushing your teeth every morning and after lunch.

More advice for having a good oral health

There are little details that you must know:

1. Change your toothbrush every three months. I usually recommend to have at home as many toothbrushes as you would need in a year. Thus, you can easily change your toothbrush every season.
2. Keep your toothbrush clean and dry to avoid the growth of bacteria and fungi.
3. As you may know, food permeates your teeth, mouth and tongue. So, you should clean thoroughly all these parts when brushing your teeth.

To cover all these aspects, you will need a toothbrush, dental floss, a lingual scrapper, an interdental brush and mouthwash to complete your oral hygiene.

It is advisable to visit your dentist a minimum of once a year, which would help him/her to detect any other problem that you cannot solve brushing your teeth. This way, you will have a very satisfactory oral health and you won’t spend a great amount of money visiting your dentist.

Now I am pretty sure that you will understand why I tell my patients to brush their teeth so persistently.