Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Your San Diego Dentist Says: No More Excuses!

Dentists see it all the time. Patients come in for their regular dental check-up, thinking they've outsmarted the pros by vigorously brushing and flossing the day of or night before their scheduled appointment. However, this desperate attempt to trick your dentist won't work -- we can tell just by looking at your teeth that you haven't been flossing regularly like you're supposed to.

But, don't feel bad about your situation. A lot of people forget to floss or have excuses about why they don't floss. The good thing is that you can fix this problem with flossing in a few easy steps. And, to encourage healthy habits Dr. Kitchen, who is  a San Diego dentist, found these 8 excuses people use to not floss, with a counter argument:

Do you floss? Or, like many people, do you always seem to find a reason not to?A 2008 survey found that only 49% of Americans floss daily, and 10% never floss. That’s most unfortunate, dentists say, because flossing is even more important than brushing when it comes to preventing periodontal (gum) disease and tooth loss. 

"If you were stuck on a desert island and a boat could bring only one thing, you’d want it to bring floss,” says Samuel B. Low, DDS, professor of periodontology at the University of Florida College of Dentistry in Gainesville, and president of the American Academy of Periodontology. “But I’m convinced that the only time some of my patients floss is an hour before showing up in my office.”

Dentists say they hear all sorts of excuses for not flossing. Yet they insist that simple workarounds exist for just about all:

Excuse #1: Food doesn’t get caught between my teeth, so I don’t need to floss.Flossing isn’t so much about removing food debris as it is about removing dental plaque, the complex bacterial ecosystem that forms on tooth surfaces between cleanings. Plaque is what causes tooth decay, inflamed gums (gingivitis), periodontal disease, and eventually tooth loss. Flossing or using an interdental cleaner is the only effective way to remove plaque between teeth.

Excuse #2: I don’t know how to floss.Flossing isn’t easy.  Low calls it “the most difficult personal grooming activity there is.” But practice makes perfect.

Here’s how the American Dental Association describes the process:
  • Start with about 18 inches of floss. Wrap most of it around the middle finger of one hand, the rest around the other middle finger.
  • Grasp the floss tightly between your thumbs and forefingers, and use a gentle shoeshine motion to guide it between teeth.
  • When the floss reaches the gum line, form a C shape to follow the contours of the tooth.
  • Hold the floss firmly against the tooth, and move the floss gently up and down.
  • Repeat with the other tooth, and then repeat the entire process with the rest of your teeth, “unspooling” fresh sections of floss as you go along.
Don’t forget to floss the backs of your last molars. “By far, most gum disease and most decay occurs in the back teeth,” Low says.
To continue reading this article, Dr. Kitench recommends heading over to Web MD, here


David L. Kitchen, DDS
9850 Genesee Avenue
Suite 540
La Jolla, CA 92037

Telephone: 858.558.1946
info@davidkitchendds.com

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