It's probably safe to say you'd like your smile to look it's best. After all, you want to keep your grin healthy for as long as possible. While it's helpful to see your dentist for checkups and cleanings on a regular basis, it's also essential to maintain a solid at-home dental care routine.
At-Home Dental Hygiene
Taking time to brush your teeth thoroughly for two minutes, two times per day and flossing once every day are key to a good at-home oral hygiene routine.
Our dentists in Vancouver dentists understand that some of our patients who do a fantastic job brushing their teeth skip the flossing part because they think that brushing is enough to keep their smile healthy.
However, flossing plays a role that your toothbrush just can't. About one-third of our tooth's surface is difficult to reach with a toothbrush. When you skip flossing, those hard-to-reach places won't get the cleaning they need to stay their healthiest.
Flossing helps to eliminate bacteria and plaque from those tight crevices between your teeth, and at your gum line where your toothbrush doesn't clean as well.
Plaque
During the course of the day a sticky film of plaque, builds up on our teeth. Plaque can quickly harden into tartar, lead to cavities, or get under your gum line and cause periodontal disease.
Tartar
If plaque isn't removed from your teeth regularly, it quickly hardens and becomes tartar. In fact, it takes as little as 36 hours for plaque to become tartar!
Once the plaque has turned into tartar it's far more difficult to remove from your teeth. Typically tartar needs to be removed by a dental professional during a hygiene cleaning appointment.
Simply by flossing daily you can help to prevent plaque from building up in the tight spaces between your teeth and hardening into tartar. Less tartar means less scraping the next time you visit your dental office for a cleaning, and less chance of developing tooth decay, cavities, or gum disease.
Flossing every day is a quick and easy way to keep your smile healthy and to save time the next time you head to your dental hygienist for a cleaning.