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Comment by linsomniac | Hacker News Reader

ProTip: I went from rarely flossing to basically every day with "this one weird trick": I now floss my teeth in the shower. I like staying in the shower a little longer, so the 2 minutes went from chore to luxury. And the amount of food I remove on a daily basis is astonishing!

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I started using those floss picks with the handles. I resisted the idea for ages since it seemed wasteful but I really hate wrapping the floss around my fingers. The picks make it so much easier, you can get them made of non petrochemical plastics (PLA) as well making them slightly less bad for the environment.

I also switched to the picks with handles as part of that change. I used to do the "tie floss into a loop" trick, but it was kind of a pain in the butt to do that. So part of lowering the barrier was going with picks. I also hate the waste, but figure it's worth it for the tooth longevity.

Your comment reminded me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMQTg4Y0YT0

I get the comedy but now I'm wondering why he ordered a pair of chinos if he doesn't plan to get out of the shower.

Same. It is a way to incorporate it into the daily routine.

Also, I tie my floss into a big loop. I can tension it with my whole hand while still using individual fingers to get it where I need it.

Takes practice to get a quick easy knot that doesn't slip, but now it is like tying shoelaces - automatic and quick.

I honestly think "floss loops" is the next "sliced bread".

This is actually genius, I'm gonna start doing this as well. Thank you for the great idea.

You can brush your teeth in the shower too.

Done and done! That's another part of that plan, I floss and then brush.

Isn't the science on flossing not showing any benefit?

Edit: looked it up. No solid scientific evidence flossing helps.

That's what I thought. Then I tried not flossing, and my gums got unhealthy and started bleeding a lot in like two weeks. My teeth aren't unusual; I wouldn't expect to be that much of an outlier; so not sure what was going on in those studies that I also had heard about.

Bro, you don't need a paper to demonstrate the benefit of flossing.

Just get right in there at the back with some decent floss (Oral B Satin Tape is good), and taste the rotten, disgusting food you remove. That's what the people around you are smelling every day when you exhale.

Don't be an ass, don't imply my breath smells. Be better than that.

If you don't floss, I can promise you that your breath smells.

Maybe not bad, but people notice it if you're in close quarters.

Have you done a scientific review, or just talking out of your ass?

You need a scientific study to know that rotting food smells bad?

Sure:

> Our study confirmed that use of dental floss was associated with lower odds of having oral malodor after controlling for other factors. This agrees with the findings reported recently by AlSadhan [15] who demonstrated statistically significant relationship between self-reported halitosis and use of dental floss. Faveri et al.[32] evaluated the effect of interdental flossing on oral malodor and found that there was a significantly lower concentration of sulfur compounds after using dental floss.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5727733/

> You need a scientific study to know that rotting food smells bad?

Stop behaving like a jerk, please. Be better than that here on HN. That's just a straw man. If you remove all food by normal brushing (which most scientific evidence points towards), your argument doesn't even make sense. As there is no food left.

Excuse me? I'm being a jerk?

I guess we can just leave it there then.

Have a nice day :)

Talking out of their ass. It is a simple fact of life some folks never floss and basically don't brush while smelling equally minty to folks that floss and brush twice per day. The easiest way to figure out this is true is thinking about how few people floss (you can ask your dentist, most people don't) and how many people have bad smelling breath (easy to smell when you're in public transport).

Only floss the teeth you want to keep

There is surprisingly little peer reviewed data on flossing, but we ran our own study on how flossing impacts the oral microbiome (surveying our users) and found that flossing incidence is correlated with reduced levels of gum disease, bad breath, and cavities related bacterial species:

https://www.bristlehealth.com/post/bristle-research-the-effe...

I don't know about scientific evidence, but I do know that personally, for my teeth, when I went from infrequent flossing to frequent: My dental visit time went down, he spent less time scraping off plaque, and my gum pocket readings went down from 2-4 to 1-3. I also know that basically every day I'm pulling an amazing amount of food out from between my teeth, which if I didn't floss would sit there and build up plaque.

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