I’d love to share some of my tips for keeping your teeth beautifully clean. When someone mentions teeth cleaning, where does your mind go? Do you think of the twice-yearly cleaning you receive at the dentist, your daily routine of brushing, or maybe a beautiful smile you’ve dreamed of?
The truth is, teeth cleaning actually encompasses all of those things and more. Properly caring for our teeth can make them appear shiny and white, but it can also benefit the health of not only our mouth, but of our entire body.
So, knowing the proper techniques to keep your teeth happy and healthy is really important. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation on exactly how to look after our teeth.
So, here are a few of my top tips for teeth cleaning-to help you maintain not only the beauty of your teeth, but also the underlying health that is so important to your whole body. So, here goes
1. Use an electric toothbrush
Electric toothbrushes have been shown better at cleaning your teeth. Full stop. The bristles are designed to efficiently remove plaque from the teeth. In fact, they can remove more plaque than a manual toothbrush.
An electric toothbrush will make it easier for you to reach those difficult places, such as the back teeth, and many people brush their teeth too hard. This can cause injury to the gums making them bleed and recede a bit. Brushing too hard can also remove some enamel. Electric toothbrushes prevent you from brushing too hard. You can just let the brush do the work! Yeah.
2. Proper brushing
Everyone knows that they should brush their teeth, but when it comes to the specifics there is often some confusion like how long should we brush for? Is there a right time of day to brush? Those kind of things.
The answers to these questions seem like they should be common knowledge, but that’s not always the case.
As a general rule, we should brush our teeth twice a day for two minutes each time. The ideal times to establish this ritual are as soon as we wake up, and right before going to bed. Doable? Yeah. [ easier said than done when you have three teenagers tho’, at least in the Smith household!]
As for the physical effort that should go into brushing, keep it minimal. Make sure you brush all areas thoroughly, maybe by establishing a routine and don’t think about scrubbing them.
Finally, avoid rinsing out with water after brushing because this actually prevents the fluoride and ingredients in the toothpaste from performing to their full potential by being able to stay on the tooth surface for longer. Just spit out the excess and get on with your day.
3. Limit tooth enemies
It’s well-known that sugar is the sworn enemy of healthy teeth, but it’s in most of our favourite foods and drinks, so what do we do?
Ok, we should try and restrict our sugar intake to mealtimes only if possible, as it’s not the amount of sugar that we take, but the frequency that we take it, that’s important. That’s a real key takeaway here.
Other drinks, like coffee and alcohol, can wear away at the teeth due to their acidity and their tendency to dry our mouth out, which creates the perfect environment for bacteria to grow.
We don’t need to cut out all the good things in life, just practice moderation and timing when we have the good stuff! And make sure we drink plenty of water!
4. Toss the toothbrush
It’d be great if we could buy a toothbrush that would last a lifetime……..
But it’s really important to replace your toothbrush every three to four months. The reason is pretty obvious, but it’s easily overlooked – bacteria and worn bristles. Our brush will build up bacteria and it’s not going to be as effective in removing our plaque.
5. Visit your dentist regularly
Be sure to visit us at least twice a year for routine cleaning.
We can provide a much more thorough cleaning than it’s possible to achieve on your own, which is super important for removing hard-to-reach plaque and tartar [ plaque that’s become solid] , to keep those sparklers healthy!
Dr. Russell Smith
