Healthy Living: Bad Habits Affecting Your Teeth
Last week around this time, children were out collecting their fair share of sweets and treats. Now that Halloween is over, it is an excellent time to reassess your family’s oral hygiene. That’s the focus of tonight’s Healthy Living, where we discover that even the good habits you think you have can be setting back your oral health.
Marleni Cuellar, Reporting
The chances are that from as far back as you can remember, you were told how important it is to brush your teeth. But even if you brush three times a day every day, it doesn’t mean you’re practicing good oral hygiene.
Dwayne Usher
Dr. Dwayne Usher, Dental Surgeon, Innova Dental Care
“The most common thing are root canal and periodontal disease. Those two are very much common in our society today. And it all stems from the basic oral care at home.”
Dental Surgeon at Innova Dental Care, Dr. Dwayne Usher, says the problem is that too many people are using the wrong tools and techniques in their daily dental care.
Dr. Dwayne Usher
“For everyone growing up they tell you take the toothbrush, move it around and around, back and forth, and in a circular motion. Alright? But that’s fine for young kids growing up, but when we reach adulthood, the body starts to change, and our tissues or muscle tone become different. If we are constantly one: with a hard bristle toothbrush and two: we’re just yanking it up and down, then what we eventually end up doing is destroying the gum line around these teeth.”
So while you may have the best intentions aggressively brushing up and down, what you’re doing, is packing all those food particles under the gum and causing more damage in the long run.
Dr. Dwayne Usher
“As time progresses, this just accumulates more and more. The tissue becomes inflamed; then, we say oh my teeth are bleeding when I brush that’s gingivitis. It starts there. Now if that continues. It’ll accumulate; eventually, all that tartar and plaque that build up there becomes mineralized by the saliva. That same saliva basically hardened the plaque, and it’s calcified it adheres to your teeth, and that again accumulates so then you start seeing these brown stains, these dark hard areas on our teeth and even more bleeding and even more inflammation even more discomfort.”
Eventually, if this continues, you’ll probably end up in a dentist chair with more severe and painful complications. According to Dr. Usher, a lot of these problems can be prevented by correcting common mistakes. The first of which we make in the supermarket.
Dr. Dwayne Usher
“Toothbrush yes, a lot of times, we feel like we have to scrub our teeth. We grow up di hear that. But it’s not scrubbing it’s brushing. So when you go to the store you’ll find the soft bristles, you’ll find the hard bristles. The ideal one is the medium. It’s soft enough to get into all the necessary crevices and still stiff enough to clean properly. So what we need to do starting off with a medium bristle toothbrush. Place your toothbrush at a forty-five-degree angle towards your gum line, and you do basically a downward sweeping motion. Now you won’t have your teeth together, you’ll have your mouth open, and you’ll be focusing just on your top teeth. The bottom teeth forty-five-degree angle toward the gemlike, and then you come upward. And whatever you do on the outside. It’s the same thing you are going to do on the outside. On your chewing surface. Regular circular motion is fine. It’s all enamel that can handle the stress.”
And, no discussion about proper oral hygiene would be complete without a reminder to floss.
Dr. Dwayne Usher
“It is not a common part of our culture, and I know most time people would say I barely have time to brush my teeth and through the door. It takes time. When we brush, everything is nice and clean, you feel good. You just clean up but what happens to these tiny food particles that are lodged between the gum lines and so forth. These are the particle that left a lingering end up, causing more gum disease and decay. If we can implement flossing as a part of our oral care and oral hygiene. We would avoid a lot of our dental visits.”
Correcting these common mistakes will not only improve your overall oral health but also spare you costly dentist visits as you should have fewer complications.
Dr. Dwayne Usher
“Once you can practice proper brushing with proper flossing. You’ll be good. You visit your dentist for routine cleaning and so forth and you’ll bet ok. And then we will start to reduce the stigma. Oh, the dentist is pain and is bad. We’re here to help. We’re definitely here to help.”
