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Comment by CaliforniaKarl | Hacker News Reader

The tl;dr: If your toothpaste contains Flouride, it needs to stay on your teeth for 20-30 minutes in order to work properly. If you don't want to do that—or you don't have a toothpaste containing Flouride—you can followup the brushing with a Flouride-containing mouthwash, which you do not wash out.

This is what I do. I use a mouthwash with Flouride, and don't rinse my mouth for ~30 minutes after using it.

This reminds me of a change that my dentist's office made a few years ago: Apparently dental insurance (at least my plan) has added coverage for a Flouride treatment with every office visit, so they have me do a Flouride rinse—probably with a higher-concentration rinse—at the end of each visit.

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I need to rinse after brushing to feel clean, so my solution has been to swish around a tiny dab of toothpaste in my mouth afterward and spit out the excess.

Floss, rinse thoroughly with water, brush with fluoride toothpaste (and do not rinse after).

Is the don't-rinse advice still needed in areas where water is fluoridated, since that's what I'm rinsing with?

My understanding is that fluoridation of municipal water supplies serves a different purpose than fluoride in toothpaste. The fluoride in the water supply is low concentration and is intended to cause teeth to develop with stronger cavity resistance, toothpaste is a much more superficial and immediate measure.

I used to rinse with mouthwash after brushing but was told the toothpaste has a much higher concentration, so it's better to leave the toothpaste.

You could also rinse the toothpaste from the brushing, and then you can apply additional toothpaste and swish it around some (and not rinse).

That may seem odd to do, but if the main reason you rinse is to wash away the junk that you loosened by brushing then it makes sense.

> I use a mouthwash with Flouride

Does anyone want to commit? Name a brand and why?

Most mouth wash seems to have fluoride and they don't say how much, but you also have a fluoride mouth rinse.

I just bought a fluoride mouth rinse that was Sodium Fluoride 0.2mg/mL (Equivalent to 220 PPM Fluoride ION) which matches this study - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3525928/ - "the weekly use of 0.2% sodium fluoride mouthwash program has been successful in elementary schools of Tabriz"

How much is in normal mouth wash?

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