Flossing Your Way to Better Dental Health (Infographic)
The banal floss is such an overlooked dental health accessory, although the greatest majority of dentists agree that regular flossing can prevent severe health issues such as diabetes.
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Flossing is a procedure, which is also overlooked in specialist literature, so now the time has really arrived to pinpoint some of essential facts regarding flossing.
What comes first: brushing or flossing?
The general rule requires that you first brush your teeth, then floss them and the last step is rinsing with a mouthwash. The main role of the floss is to clean up all those intra-dental spaces where your brush cannot reach. Your teeth are perfectly clean only if you use the floss as well. On the other hand, flossing does not replace brushing, so when travelling, you are allowed to forget the floss, but you can’t leave behind your toothbrush.
You need to brush your teeth twice a day, but you can limit flossing to one time per day, which is in the evening. By flossing the teeth every evening, you are actually cleaning up the microbial plaque that is the number one culprit causing several dental infectious.
By removing the plaque with the floss, you are also preventing periodontal disease, tooth decay and gingivitis which might easily lead to permanent tooth loss. When you clean your teeth with the floss in the evening, you are giving your mouth a “breathing” time for as many as 8 hours during the night. Therefore, your mouth is bacteria free, and debris free for as long as you sleep.
The greatest mistake that you can make while flossing is to move the floss back and forth several times. This movement can lead to tooth abrasion, and you can even easily damage the dental crown in your mouth.
Instead, you should start using the floss correctly:
- introduce the clean string of floss starting at the top of your tooth
- allow it to reach to the gum line
- remove the floss and proceed to the next tooth using another clean string of floss. Never use the “sawing” method when you cleanse your teeth with the floss
If you don’t like the regular floss, the market is abounding in plenty other alternatives such as the tooth harp or the water flosser device. The harp will actually save you a lot of time, and it is a good accessory for people who are not overzealous about flossing with the regular string.
You can also choose the waxed floss that will help the floss slipping much easier, or you an also go for the ribbon style floss, which cleanses an even greater area of the tooth with one movement.
Floss or Die
Infographic provided by YourLocalSecurity.com
Categories: Oral Hygiene
Topics: Tags: bacteria, breathing time, brush your teeth, brushing, cleaning, culprit, decay, dental, dental crown, dental health
I love the infographic! Very informative. I’ve seen a lot of those and this one looks particularly sharp and insightful!
Water floss is a great invention, sometimes when I’m simply too tired to do flossing, it’s much easier to use water floss, and I’m sure it provides almost the same result.
Loving the infographic trend. Such a great way to sum up pertinent information that can be absorbed and hopefully remembered better! I love the “Remember, if you don’t floss your teeth, they’ll go away”. Reminds me of the joke:
Patient: Doc, should I floss my teeth more?
Dentist: Only the ones you want to keep!
We were impressed with the infographic you displayed, “Floss or Die”. How can we get a copy of it to display in our dental clinic? We’d love to order one. :)
Wow, this is scary stuff. I was fortunate enough to have a Dental Hygienist for a mother growing up and she really drilled the brushing and flossing routine into my brothers and I. I have been fortunate enough to always have healthy teeth and I credit my moms insistence on good hygiene growing up.
Having an infographic like this will definitely make the importance of flossing easier for the masses to digest, and most people are not aware of the right way of flossing and may end up doing more harm than good if they are not educated.