Dental Care

Warning: Dental problems can cause heart problems as bacteria enter the blood streams.

What you need
• Dental floss
• Inter-dental or inter-proximal brush (optional)
• Tooth brush (soft or medium)
• Electric tooth brush (brand: Braun precision clean, optional)
• Steel dental pick
• Mouthwash

Cleaning Routine
1. Floss - take away the big pieces. Tie (using double knots) 2 ends of 12-inch long dental floss to form a ring. That will allow you to floss using entire length of the floss and have better grip of the floss. Flossing removes the larger deposits from teeth & gums.
Note:
- Make sure floss wraps around the side of teeth (like 'C') and not cut into and harm gum between teeth. Move floss up and down
- Rotate floss to use new clean section when you move to next tooth

2. Interdental Brush - clean the big holes & back of last teeth. Dip interdental (interproximal) brush in some toothpaste and clean gaps between teeth. Rinse brush with running water before moving to next tooth or quadrant.
Note:
 - This step applies only for people with periodontitis (receded gums) which results in gaps/holes between teeth and is not necessary for people with good healthy gums/teeth.
 - The back of the last teeth at back of mouth are difficult to reach using normal tooth brush, but easier with a large inter-dental brush.

3. Precision Clean (using electric brush) - getting to hard to get areas. Focus on difficult to reach areas i.e. teeth and gum lines at back of mouth especially wisdom teeth.
Note:
- Electric brushes are expensive, so use them where their return is highest.
- Use Step 9 to determine such areas to focus

4. Main Brush (using normal brush) - Start with Soaking. At start, quickly brush all surfaces of all teeth, gums, tongue and walls of mouth. This is to spread toothpaste around mouth and let the toothpaste's chemical cleaning to start working on all parts from the beginning.
Note:
- Use a good amount of toothpaste - do not try to save on it!
- Change toothpaste brands regularly. Bacteria adapt to cleaning agents. Changing toothpaste regularly reduce chance of that happening.
- Use different pastes for morning/night brush if possible e.g. normal paste for night and sensitive paste for morning or vice versa.

5. Main Brush (using normal brush). Slowly and lightly brush teeth using circular motions with brush tilted at 45 degrees and bristles pointed towards root of teeth. That is to make sure space between gum and teeth are also brushed. After brushing teeth and gum line, make sure to brush the rest of the gums, walls/sides of mouth and tongue
Note:
- It is how long you brush that matters, not how hard. Brushing hard harms gum
- Use different brushes with different patterns/shapes for AM/PM. More thorough since different shapes reach different areas
- Manual brush which has longer bristles is better than electric brush because longer bristles can reach deeper into gaps and hard to reach areas

6. Post Brush Soaking. After brushing, leave tooth paste in mouth for a couple of minutes to let chemical cleaning work longer (have bath in meantime etc).

7. Rinse mouth with mouthwash (optional) for 2 to 3 minutes. Dilute if required. Avoid this except when some bleeding or ulcer detected.

8. Dental Pick - cleanliness check. Use steel dental pick to pick at difficult to reach areas like gaps between teeth and see how clean the teeth and gums are. Spend more time and focus on such areas when flossing, brushing etc.
Note: Unclean areas will smell or bleed because of bacterial infection.


How to Clean Brushes & Dental Pick
Once a while or when you notice plaque (bacterial deposit) formation, clean tooth brushes (incl electric brush heads) and dental pick as follows:
- soak in boiling water with some mild hand wash (or natural anti-bacterial like vinegar, lemon juice)
- while soaking, use dental pick to scrape the base of bristles to loosen and get rid of plaque
- keep soaking for a few hours

Change tooth brush every 3 to 6 months, or if bristles are flared


Go for dental check every 6 months.
You may not be aware of gum infections like gingivitis until it is too late. Dentists can detect such problems early and help correct it before it gets too advanced (condition known as periodontitis - advanced gum infection and irreparable bone loss below gum).