Think of how most skin infections start. Something breaks the skin’s barrier such as a tear, abrasian, laceration, etc. Bacteria then enters the fresh wound and starts to eat on the skin.
Your gums aren’t the same as your skin, but they have their own epithelial tissue, and its pretty thin. When you brush your teeth, you’re putting small tears all over your gums even when you don’t bleed. You may not brush your teeth directly, but the brush is still scraping your gums.
Flossing seems to be worst. Most people do bleed when they floss. If you bleed, then that means you made a breach in your gum’s barrier. Most bacteria are smaller than your blood cells, so they can easily enter microscopic tears too.
Also, burshing your teeth twice a day doesn’t make your mouth sterile. You did clean your mouth, but the bacteria is going to grow back before you brush it again at night.
Maybe there’s some way to clean our teeth better without giving our gums an abrasion.
Now, personally I never had gum disease, but I was just wondering about this.
According to what my dentist told me a few days when I had a cleaning, brushing isn’t intended to remove the bacteria, it’s to remove the food residue which the bacteria feed on.
I think my dentist and dental hygienist would strongly disagree with you on this and my experience demonstrates that they’re right. If most people’s gums bleed when they floss, it’s because their gums are tender due to inflammation caused by gingivitis. When you floss regularly, your gums become healthy, and they won’t bleed at all when you brush or floss. For me, it only takes a week of dedicated (daily) flossing for the inflammation to go away.
Have you ever met someone that eats a modern (sugary laden) diet that didn’t brush their teeth regularly? I have and it never works out well to say the least so the answer is no. The problem is that the human mouth isn’t designed very well compared to the life expectancy of the rest of the body is always trying to decay. The only way to combat that is to brush regularly, floss, use a WaterPik and see a professional a couple of times a year to fix the areas that are still failing despite your best efforts. It is like keeping up a dairy barn. Of course there is going to be new shit in it every day but you have to keep it clean or suffer the consequences.
There were plenty of people in the recent past that didn’t brush their teeth much at all or used inferior products to try to clean them. That is why you used to see so many denture product commercials on TV. Their teeth literally rotted out of their mouth even at young ages but that doesn’t happen nearly as much anymore.
Absolutely. Bleeding is a sign of gum disease or damage. The cure is better flossing, a water pik, or proper brushing three times a day or some combination of those. The alternative is periodontal scaling, which is expensive and painful. You want your brush to brush the gums as well as the enamel.
Contemplation, where are you getting your information from? It certainly isn’t from a dentist.
Right, if your gums bleed when you brush or floss, either you already have gum disease or you’re brushing/flossing incorrectly. Health gums don’t bleed from normal cleaning.
You need to make sure your toothbrush is soft. A hard brush may cause the gums to recede. So buy a soft brush and run it under hot water for a while before using it. The heat will further soften the brush.
A friend of mine had to have oral surgery on her gums, grafting tissue onto the gums at her lower front teeth. She had been a very vigorous tooth-brusher, and had damaged her gums. But, this was, according to her dentist, the result of brushing way too hard, for many years. Normal brushing should not have that sort of effect.
You can brush too often and too hard and damage your teeth and gums. Aside from this obsessive behavior brushing is not going to cause problems, it will prevent them.
Last time I got my teeth cleaned, I mentioned that a previous hygienist had recommended an electric toothbrush–which I bought. She thought it was a good idea, but told me to concentrate on brushing the teeth–not my gums. And the “kit” she gave me included a very soft toothbrush; I don’t tote my electric brush to work for my after-lunch brushing. Flossing is necessary, of course.
After many years of neglecting dentistry, I finally realized the nearby big dental school with a big clinic offering low-cost dentistry also had a small clinic staffed by the faculty. Covered by my dental insurance! So I get good care from skilled professionals who love to tell me stuff!
So–brush your teeth harder than your gums. Floss. See a professional.
Clearly “Big Dental” has gotten to this board. Brushing and flossing will kill you, probably causing autism first. And don’t get me started on fluoride! If God had wanted people to brush, he would have had people growing bristles on their index fingers!
Seriously- while it may be just barely possible to argue that eating a primitive diet does not require brushing/flossing to keep teeth, I think that the “tattoo-to-teeth” ratio is still pretty high in any stone-age cultures that have been observed in recent times. Maybe an anthropologist can weigh in. But clearly the diet of civilized man seems to significantly benefit from dental care.
Scraping your gums is the point. Just like it hurts your fingertips to play guitar until you build up callouses, it hurts your gums to floss and brush until you toughen them up. Just do it every day and your gums will be tough as they need to be in three days, tops.
Bacteria really have little to do with it by themselves. The issue is the tartar that builds up, giving the bacteria a place to hang out and defecate their acidic waste all over your teeth. Destroy their homes, the calculus buildup called tartar or plaque, and it doesn’t matter if there is bacteria in your mouth or not, because they won’t stick around to harm anything.
It’s the same misunderstanding as antibacterial soap. The point of soap is to wash the oils off your hands. That’s where the bacteria lives. Killing each individual bacterium is impossible as well as pointless. Antibacterial soap is thus based on a misconception about what hand soap is supposed to do. It appears you have a similar misconception about what brushing is supposed to do. An antiseptic mouth is not the goal. Teeth and a gumline free of tartar is the goal.
But don’t brush teeth ***too ***hard. Gentle does it. The crowns can stand a lot, but the sides have a pretty thin layer of enamel and you don’t want to lose it.
I thought that the benefits of flossing were under some question lately by dental authorities?
I brush twice a day and use a fluoride rinse, but rarely floss unless I get something stuck in my teeth. But I get compliments from my dentist and haven’t had a cavity in 25 years.
(I did used to brush too hard, which made the sides of my teeth sensitive and caused some gum recession. I had the periodontal scaling about 10 years ago and began using fluoride, and brushing more gently, which solved those problems).
I’ve heard that theory before, but never backed up by a reputable cite. Reputable cites make the claims posted in this thread: bleeding is a sign of gum disease. Three days for gums to toughen up seems like a very short amount of time.
I don’t see how it could be. You’re removing bits of food from in between your teeth where your brush generally can’t reach, which would otherwise rot in your mouth and cause halitosis and increase decay.
I know all the dentists and dental hygienists I been to would disagree with what the OP said about flossing your teeth, my teeth get floss after being cleaned all the time. I get a bag with dental floss , toothpaste , toothbrush and small bottle of mouth wash before leaving my dentist’s office. I agree with you Brown Eyed Girl .
