How To Care For Your Teeth

Step 1: The Equpitment

A good home hygiene program is in five parts: there are the toothbrushes; there is the dental floss; there are the toothpicks and the flashlight - with each toothbrush counting as one part.

The most important feature of good home hygiene for your teeth is thoroughness. If you just brush once a day, that's enough, if you are thorough in your tooth brushing. Good toothbrushing requires two toothbrushes. One is a regular toothbrush and you use it to scrub three of the five surfaces of your teeth. The other two are taking care of by the dental floss.

Step 2: The First Toothbrush

So when you brush your teeth, you scrub around on the outside and then on the biting surfaces. That takes care of two surfaces. Then up inside, the inside surfaces next to the tongue. The teeth next to the tongue have a different shape from the teeth that are next to your cheek which are more flat. The teeth next to the tongue are bowed generally, like little pillows. So extra care is required in order to get inside your mouth and around those odd shapes. You can feel with your tongue your different teeth on the inside to feel how they are shaped and you can brush your teeth accordingly.

Step 3: The Second Toothbrush

The second feature of a good program is a second toothbrush. This one has been modified by using fingernail scissors to cut away two-thirds to three-quarters of the toothbrush leaving only a tuft at the end. After brushing your teeth with this toothbrush, you take out this one and you brush just all around next to the gum line on the outside and on the inside. If, when you spit into the basin, there is any red colouring from blood whatsoever, that spells trouble. So you need to take steps in your tooth brushing and the thoroughness of your tooth brushing to overcome any evidence whatsoever of blood when you spit.

Step 4: The Dental Floss

Then we come to the dental floss. You take out a stretch of dental floss and you wrap each end around the fingernail of an index finger. Then you stretch it using the thumb of one hand and the third finger of the other hand. You get up into your mouth and force the dental floss up between two teeth. There are two surfaces every time you get in there that have to be scrubbed. You can either scrub with a sawing motion or with an up-and-down motion when you do that. Using the dental floss every day, is an essential feature of good home hygiene for your teeth.

Step 5: The Toothpick

Toothpicks are also important. I have four sets of toothpicks placed here and there around the house. I have one in each bathroom, one on my desk and I have one in the kitchen. I use these after every meal and other times too.

Step 6: The Flashlight

It's dark inside your mouth. So occasionally you want to take a flashlight and look inside your mouth. And check around and see what the condition is of your teeth. Sometimes you can find evidence of inadequate tooth brushing or even of tooth decay and if you did, of course you need to take steps to work with that.

For more information on this and on other home routines, you can go to my website which is users.erols.com/interlac/homehy.