Chances are you already have a lot bacteria in your mouth and once you eat your breakfast (which for many is sugary) they immediately eat and consume this and produce acid. So, brush before breakfast, supposedly.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t4RgBZlKlJI
Evolution expects us to grind away about a millimeter of our teeth while we are young by eating rougher things to make way for wisdom teeth, for example.
For healthy teeth, you should be very hydrated. If your mouth isn’t watering, you might not be hydrated enough.
> One of the areas where human crystal formation happens
Especially one of the areas where you want crystals to form. Unlike in your urinary and bladders. ;)
Feels like engineering: It's all trade-offs.
The evidence is just lacking, people are just using judgement to advise on something that we can't detect one way or another with research.
When it comes to dental care it's not even clear, based on research (Cochrane review in 2019) it flossing makes any difference let alone a clinically useful difference.
The current advice is just based on reasoning that either you brush first or wait a hour after eating due to the abrasive action of brushing.
Over the random internet randos views.
But thanks none the less!
(And for whatever it's worth, all dental check-ups since some point in my early teens at the latest have just been a quick look around and yep all good - I'm not saying this from a position (touching wood I don't eat my hat next time of course) of terrible dental health.)
You're absolutely correct, because I don't floss that often, but every time I do a whole meal comes out, so I'm incredibly envious of your naturally clean teeth XD
Same with hair, and bacteria on surfaces.
Completely hookwinked Jo public.
Didn’t people not brush at all in the past but still had perfect teeth?
I feel like replacing "brushing teeth" with literally anything and your sentence is also correct and a good way to think. Especially the things we think are easy. There's a reason it took us thousands of years to do certain things.
How long would you recommend to wait? Or perhaps a good rinsing of teeth before brushing would be enough?
* Disclaimer: I am not a dentist, you should find a good one and talk to them for real advice.
But before brushing or after brushing??!!
So I think that given this rigorous scientific data, you can safely avoid brushing for the most part
And I switched to only brushing with an electric toothbrush before bed, and don't really floss and think I've only had one small cavity since then and the hygienist said my teeth looked quite good in general.
Worth noting that I have a good diet and rarely eat sugar beyond yogurt.
Public service announcement: this one is controversial. IMHO it's wrong, based on bad science and agendas, and harmful because it deters people from nutritious foods. I recommend everyone do their own reading to form their own opinion.
It's sad how political food and nutrition is because it causes misinformation and malnutrition.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/St...
Medicine’s misunderstanding of cholesterol is one of those mistakes which became very profitable for the pharmaceutical industry.
Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live.
At least for me, I rinse out my mouth before I brush, so I don't expect to have detectable gunk left over. I also use a tongue scraper after, so I'm usually feeling pretty clean when I'm done.
Wellp, that's something I've never heard before. Even at the dentist, when she does a cleaning, flossing comes last.
https://www.healthline.com/health/dental-and-oral-health/flo...
I _do_ spit out excess toothpaste, which I understand still leaves enough toothpaste in your mouth for it to do it's thing.
Then my cousin discovered he’s allergic to SLS. I quit toothpaste with SLS and I never get them anymore. It’s rare but you never know who else struggles with it and doesn’t know.
And don’t use Listerine etc, their alcohol content is way too high and leads to cancer over time apparently.
The solubility of enamel is insanely low so the effect should be minor at most, but still.
P.S. If you never tried these gizmos, get a portable, battery powered one, so you can use it over the bathtub (or in the bathtub). They tend to soak everything around you.
I worked my way up to a fairly high pressure and it regularly removes stuff that I missed with my electric toothbrush. It also leaves you with a very fresh and clean mouth feel.
I also wasn't very sure about them when I first looked into it, but it's really not a snake-oil product. It's also not the holy grail of dental health, just a reasonable alternative to flossing.
Depending on how quickly you lose pressure you might also consider using it with filtered water
It's used in combination with brushing, of course - water-pik then brush.
It's a WF-02 ... it's the kind with 3 AA cells that I have rechargeables in (this is better for my bathroom setup).
I've had the same base model for 10+ years going strong.
Ditto “vet” food for pets, they’re very biased.
Anyway, not telling you how to live. For me it’s well worth the 0.5% of the rest of my life but you do you. Maybe you have better teeth than me and won’t need to spend hours at the dentist over your lifetime to buy their second country house or pay for their divorce, or maybe you don’t get bits of rotten food between your teeth.
I’ve decided the trade off is worth it for me, but you really don’t have to reach the same conclusion about yourself :)
I destroyed my gums when my parents got me an electric toothbrush when I was 13 - and AFAIK - there's still not really any way to repair it.
Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong! Would make my day to be wrong.
Usually kooky ideas do nothing, but every now and then one works for no explicable reason.
I always thought I was a scientist by needing to understand a magnetism before trying, but actually real science is often just trying a bunch of random solutions, finding what works, and only then trying to work out mechanism!
Testing and keeping an open mind is a worthwhile mindset, even if you only get the occasional win.
To each their own!
You said you have a serious ongoing problem, and aszantu‘s suggestion sounds unrelated, but the cost of trying is low, and nurturing the attitude that you may be able to fix things is worthwhile. You seem to have diagnosed the cause as one thing, but perhaps there are other causes too.
I had a problem with bleeding gums (nothing like yours), and Google results suggested lots of different diagnoses and solutions. I tried a few different ideas that were low cost (time, effort, $, risk) and one worked for me. YMMV. Good luck.
PS: “understand a magnetism” — damn you autocorrect — understand a mechanism.
As for your gums, they don't grow back I believe, but you can get surgery of sorts by using other parts of your mouth and stick them in your gums. See; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF6EgSM5TlA
Used Chinese knock off for a long time, a Soocas. Recently thought about upgrading from $30 Chinese to $80 Chinese (OClean), the latter failed after 2 months. YMMMV ofc, but after that, and reading on HN about Chinese stealing IP from Europe, we thought about getting a Phillips (which my dentist recommended). It was a Black Friday deal, and knowing the differene between 5100 or 5XXX and one of the top brushes, Diamondclean, was like 1/4th of a dentist visit - we got the latter. And both me and wife think it's awesome. + you get a travel etui. The app sucks just like the Soocas and OClean app, but the vibration every 30s is enough "smartness" for me.
Funny that the cheap Chinese sonic brush (Soocas) is still working well and I'm thinking about getting a shoe cleaning brush set for it.
Phillips toothbrush doesn't last as long on one charge as the Chinese brushes do.
Why does a 3 year old video for repairing Sonicare toothbrush have 425K reviews on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3PBPU2jXbo, with 2.8K upvotes and 192 downvotes. It breaks because a screw goes loose inside the toothbrush.
I recommend you avoid Phillips electric toothbrush completely. I used a oral-B electric toothbrush for at least 8 years with no issues. And Phillips breaks in 6 months.
I say 6-ish, but it's got to be longer than that, because it was three addresses and a job ago.
I recommend buying the cheapest option and getting a warranty with them. I wish Philips could just figure out how to waterproof them properly instead of creating so much waste.
If you're teeth-grinder at night, a few tiny pieces of eggshells help keep the grinding at bay, because you can grind on a piece of eggshell without danger and then relax again.
Btw. I went through bunch of cheap noname toothbrushes to realize there is reason you pay for Philips and Oral-B brands, all cheap toothbrushes will fail within few weeks/months due to humidity or other failures, didn't have such experience with those two famous brands, wife and me use Oral-B Pulsonic Slim for years (extremely slim and light, but less powerful), for son who had problem with teeth I bought a bit better (heavier but more powerful) Philips HX6511 (still quite cheap, next time I'd buy this also for myself). Daughter has still cheap Xiaomi, waiting when it will finally break (from 4 I bought 3 broken), then will probably go for same Philips.
Btw. be aware most of the electric toothbrushes still use old NiCd batteries with memory effect, so to achieve maximum battery life/longetivity you should NOT leave tootbrush in charger, but charge it only when it runs out of battery, if you keep it in charger stand it is significantly decreasing battery life with each charging to the point it is useless already by the end of warranty.
I finally tried a name brand brush from Costco when my wife insisted and it blew my mind. Actually excited to go to the dentist to see what they say this time when I’m not full of plaque for once
A few months later she went together with her sister to their annual dentist checkup. The dentist praised her sister for how clean her teeth were, while he told my gf hers were "OK". What was it that her sister was doing differently? She was using an electric toothbrush.
I'm pretty certain you can guess what was the very first thing my then gf did coming out of the dentist.
Clearly youve figured something out and I've been doing something wrong my whole life.
You’re ditching it because sometimes you lose track of the time (and don’t want to push the button again) for something that doesn’t have a timer at all?
Must say, I just checked back HN and am surprised by this comment all grayed out. It is a real experience and life choice that's working for me. Not sure what to make of it. Guess just don't bother disagreeing online :)
If a basic model does it, I'd guess they all do it!
Also don't forget you can ignore the vibrations, just continue after the 2 minutes and count in your head if you need it.
Same here. It's completely changed my life. For mini-me, the built-in timer helps them be sure to brush enough.
How did you get into the habit?
Specifically, the one you connect to your phone coaches you on the right amount of pressure and time to use throughout your mouth.
There’s a good little joke in here.
FWIW, I’ve gone back and forth on electric toothbrushes and settled on non-electric. I’ve found that a medium-firmness bristle and a rigorous and thorough brushing is what leaves me feeling cleanest. Plus it’s simple, easy to replace, and easier to properly dispose of.
Then again, maybe a super high end electric would change my mind.
Maybe it's like a lot of things - expensive coffee beans, 144 Hz monitors, dvorak keyboards - the "it's lifechanging!" people are vocal, but 99.9% of people don't care about it at all.
Floss. For the love of God, floss. People carry around chronic gum infections in between teeth. Ask me how I know.
At a certain point you know where your "problem areas" are and where food tend to get stuck.
There is also a lack of peer reviewed studies showing that you can drown in water but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
So have I. And several dentists have actually recommended manual brushing to me as well.
On the other hand, water flossing has been a boon against dental plaque and bad breath. I used to never floss.
Disgusting mistake... A lot of food particles get stuck in the teeth interstitial spaces, macerating in there overnight or even several days... Yuck. :x