Jammies and I have a disagreement: we'd been using kiddie toothpaste (out of inertia), and this didn't come up at the dentist's visit. (I wasn't there.) I think that switching to real toothpaste counts as upping our game, and we can save flossing for the next escalation. Jammies feels like since they said that the cavities are inbetween her teeth, and they said her brushing was fine, that she needs to start flossing.
Aww, poor Hawaii. I'm inclined to agree with Jammies, but might a water pik or something like that be easier/more fun for her to use?
WATER PIK. omg that is brilliant.
Same thing happened to my brother, supposedly because of a fever my mom had at the right/wrong moment of pregnancy. I think their solution to that was more or less to just wait for the unaffected grownup teeth to come in and let the baby teeth dissolve as they would. (This doesn't sound like a Jammies- or Hawaii-friendly solution, really).
The little plastic flosses with a fixed short piece of floss are much easier and faster than traditional long spool of floss.
Were his grown up teeth fine? I assumed it grown up teeth develop separately from baby teeth, but I've been curious.
Jammies is right, I think. At least fluoride toothpaste isn't even near enough to make up for not flossing in adults. In my experience, you can't get a five year old to floss. You just have to do it for them. Get those little plastic flossers and it isn't bad.
I have an oddly specific flossing technique question for myself, not Hawaii:
There are too motions you might do with a piece of floss - vertical up the length of the tooth into the gum area, and horizontal where you pull the floss backwards/forwards in and out of your mouth (if that makes sense). I got the impression at some point that you only do the former - for each crevice, you make a vertical Y along each tooth, up past the gum line.
My current dental hygienist does the latter, vigorously, and it drives me crazy. It reminds me of how (in movies, shower scenes) men will take a towel and pull it vigorously across their neck/upper back and I always assume they're getting monstrous rug burn.
Any other obsessive flossers?
My brother's grownup teeth are normal; whatever it was with him only affected the baby teeth. But I don't really know the details/causes.
I remember that I asked my hygienist if I should floss before or after brushing. She said it didn't matter so long as I flossed. I didn't ask how or recall what she did.
Stanley once posted positing before, which is what I've also heard. The theory being that you should scrub the grout before sponging off the tile.
When I was growing up, we had a waterpik. Eventually it got taken away because it was mostly used as a squirt gun.
I feel like if any 5-year-old could be convinced to floss on her own, it's your 5-year-old. Second SP's idea about the little preset stick things though.
I don't like the flossers to use on myself, but they are really much easier to use on a different person. They make reusable flossers, if you insist on not dumping plastic into landfills for no reason, but I never found one that gave me the right angle.
11 I remember that I asked my hygienist if I should floss before or after brushing. She said it didn't matter so long as I flossed. I didn't ask how or recall what she did.
The dentist and hygienist I went to when I lived in NJ tried to convince me to only floss and not brush at all. I thought that was weird and ignored them.
For Hawaii, have you sealed all the teeth you can? It used to be the fashion to seal most of a kid's back teeth. Mouthwash might help, too. The boyfriend has bad enamel and was just recently reeducated on flossing technique. (He's obsessive about all kind of dental hygiene to make up for the bad genetic luck.) I think it was a Y, but also bending the floss around the curve of the tooth to get more contact surface.
I think it was a Y, but also bending the floss around the curve of the tooth to get more contact surface.
This is consistent with what I thought. (But not then going forward-backward like you were trying to wear a tiny horizontal rift in your tooth.)
We haven't had her teeth sealed though. The dentist hadn't suggested it.
No horizontal moves in the official instructions from the fancy-pants prosthodontist. Not sure why the sealant thing fell out of fashion. Maybe it's not really helpful/worth it/reimbursed at a high enough rate by insurance for most kids? At any rate, it might help.
When do kids lose their baby molars and further back teeth? 8-9? Have you lost all your teeth by age 10?
My kid had lots of early cavities and also got told to start flossing early. Maybe at 6, though? Anyway, I gave him the floss and we'd floss together, so not me trying to floss his teeth for him, but him learning how to do it on his own, and now at 18 he's a much, much better flosser than I am. I skip sometimes, he never does. He hasn't had a cavity in years and the dental hygienist always comments on how well he takes care of his teeth. Possibly she's just trying to encourage me to get it together a little more, but the no cavities since early childhood feels like pretty good evidence that he's doing well. I think he had 12 or some number like that in the years from 4 to 8, with murmurs of a root canal at some point. If you make it super matter-of-fact, she'll probably pick it up pretty easily.
17: That's very odd advice. Given that my only cavities were at the top of back molars, I don't know what flossing would have done to prevent that.
22: I think I lost my last by 12? I had to wait for the last molars to come out before I got braces.
Flossing together is great advice, actually. She probably just needs company to be able to do it herself.
24.1: Oops, I'm misremembering. They actually said to brush, but not to use any toothpaste. They claimed the toothpaste wears away enamel over time and doesn't have much benefit.
Huh. They did a unit on brushing your teeth and flossing at the preschool (age 4) and just learned to floss there. Then she just came home and did it and now it's part of the routine. I should thank that preschool more.
26. Did they say to use mouthwash with fluoride? I wonder if they deëmphasized fluoride too.
No, they were pro-fluoride but anti-toothpaste. And very strongly pro-floss. Probably in the pocket of Big Floss.
The little plastic flosses with a fixed short piece of floss are much easier and faster than traditional long spool of floss.
This. I used to hate flossing with the old fashioned spool, now I do it twice a day.
Glide floss is pretty good and easier for me to use.
Did they put sealant on her teeth?
30 -- the dentist I saw recently said that the fixed ones don't do anything and are worthless. According to her, point of flossing is to clean under the gums, not just to act like a toothpick removing food stuck between your teeth, and the disposable toothpick flossers only act like toothpicks.
32- the kind I was thinking of is not like a toothpick, it's a little forked stick with floss strung between the branches. It acts just like regular floss, but without cutting the circulation off in your fingertips.
Although I actually use regular floss and do not find it particularly onerous. My dad buys bags of the other ones at Costco though, and they seem like they might be a good choice for a 5-year-old.
Glide and dental tape are a million times better than floss, for the record.
33 -- that's the kind I meant by "toothpick" floss. The problem is that you can't wrap the floss around the tooth at the gumline, which is the major benefit of flossing.
Not that I use those, but why not?
Because they don't really wrap around -- the floss between the prongs is too taut.
In my experience, the floss isn't that taut.
And the prongs probably have a little give.
Well, it's definitely not loose enough to fully wrap around a tooth just below the gumline. It mostly just goes up and down or at best curves a little around the tooth.
Yes, the prongs have give. The floss-holders that aren't disposable don't have give in the prongs and the floss has to be taut since tension is what holds it in place. Maybe that's why the disposable ones were pushed by the dentist.
Anyway, while you can't get all the way around the tooth, you can get halfway around the tooth with no problem.
And then get the other half from the other side.
Yeah, but with the disposable ones you still can really wrap around and get under. We have some from before I went to see this dentist and just tried them out -- you're just pushing around the top of the tooth.
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Argh I hate writing and I hate writing talks and I hate making slides and why did I volunteer to give a talk and this is supposed to be a fun hobby conference not work and does anyone have some nice experimental dental surgery I can volunteer for instead?
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No idea if they're somehow not as good as spools (I suspect not), but the little disposable flossers are extremely successful at actually getting me to floss.
I can't floss. My teeth are too close together. This also meant that I ended up with crooked teeth in spite of braces - they just moved back to a slightly overlapping pattern when the braces were taken off. I probably should have had a tooth removed on top and bottom in childhood but my childhood dentist didn't believe in such unnatural solutions. On the flip side I've gotten a total of two cavities in my entire life.
he dentist I saw recently said that the fixed ones don't do anything and are worthless. According to her, point of flossing is to clean under the gums, not just to act like a toothpick removing food stuck between your teeth, and the disposable toothpick flossers only act like toothpicks.
Well all I can say is they were recommended by my dentist, and I'm far more inclined to use them than conventional floss. Also I don't see the comparison to toothpicks at all.I'm not jabbing toothpicks into my gums. . I kind of take the point about wrapping around, but my understanding is that the benefit of flossing isn't from the front (or back) of the tooth, where a brush can get reasonable access. It's being able to dig into the gum gaps between the teeth. No need to wrap around much for that.
Given the amount of marketing and product design that goes into toothbrushes it's kind of surprising that I have to choose between those inadequate little disposables and turning my fingertips purple while shoving my hands halfway into my mouth. This is really the best you can do, Capitalism?
Just off the top of my head, how about a pair of nun-chuck shaped thingies. You hold the two ergonomically shaped handles and floss with the connecting thread.
One handle contains an internal spool of thread that can be pulled out when a button is pressed. The other has a button made to simultaneously clip off the used floss (after the user brings the tips together) and grip the new.
|| People who play their music loud enough that I can hear it in my home, with all doors and windows closed, need to be thrown in jail. |>
50-51: I think you've invented the garrote. However, your idea of unspooling a new length of wire to replace the used segment sounds promising!
Or rented a room in your house on AirBnB.
People who live in my home know better than to crank Van Halen at my kid's bedtime.
That's probably in the wrong thread.
Boy, I need to find a new well of patience to tap. I was horribly short-tempered with the kids all day today, which is just a shitty feeling and not fair to them at all.
I don't know what comes after the calming manatees. Crocodiles resting on the banks of the Nile?
60: that's me most days. Rilee has a precise map of my buttons. And Noser PLUS Rilee? If the day was bad for both of them I should just stay at work over night. We don't mix.
58: Because when your kid gets up, nothing gets him down?
I was going to read the thread but NA' GONNA BE ABLE TA DO IT. now. my children have had such tragique cavities all their lives that I had to have my 2-year-old girl y put under fucking general anaesthesia to fix cavities near her upper gumline (from continuous night nursing--my co-sleeping ways were like unto having put her to bed with a bottle of co-cola, whoops. but anaesthesia is life-threatening shit!) she's also gone under twilight sedation for more! at 7. she has a metal tooth, so she's a cyborg. girl x has similarly awful problems.
I been massaging $50 a tube flouridated tooth mousse on their little baby teeth since day 1. which was late because they both have delayed dentition, almost no teeth till 11 months, never lost a baby tooth till 8. so little time for them to have rotted out their heads?!? I don't know what the fuck is wrong. they brush their teeth waaaay more than I ever did, because they do it religiously before school (always did, including pre-school) after lunch if at home, and immediately after dinner and then a rinse before bed. that is to say, their auntie makes them do it. so they do it FOR REAL. the water in narnia...well, they drink artesianly-hand sourced water from australia actually, but they still get plenty of flouride. WTF?
I recommend those little sword things with the hook of floss on them. you will have to do it for them until they are like 9 though unless yours have way better fine motor control than mine. wait, we've established my daughter still can't brush her hair at almost 13. nemmine maybe hawaii can take over early. you better have been good about flossing all these years, though, or if not you're going to have to up your game and do some ostentatious flossing with the bathroom door open, because kids will notice some shit.
Kids notice shit, but they still don't flush. At least mine doesn't.
reading more, heebs, I see that you don't like the sawing your tooth thing. this is right but one thing that people (and by people I mean my husband) often do wrong is let the floss POP down between the adjoining teeth surfaces onto the gum. my dentist says you should only be using pressure from the side, in a sawing-type motion, to get the floss down between whatever blockage there is between the two given teeth. at that point you can gently clean the tooth but still using mostly horizontal motions (i.e. still don't smack into your gum hard because it will cause recession.)
He insists on shutting the lid of the toilet, I think because he's afraid of something coming up out of the sewer. So, when I need to use the bathroom, it's like "Let's Make A Deal", except at least I know it won't be a goat.
Boy, teeth. We just got the 2yo to start expectorating her toothpaste, and she understands the reason (runs around the house saying "FLUORIDE is a CHEMICAL"), but we probably spend thirty minutes a day on battles over her finger-sucking ever since the dentist raised the specter of orthodonture. Possible headgear and braces are something like item n+65536 on our budget priority list.
The wide variety of recommendations people have related in this thread imply a rather disconcerting lack of consensus in the dental profession on how flossing should actually be done.
Or that we all have shitty listening skills.
A friend of mine went to the dentist after 6 months of particularly faithful brushing AND flossing, and she still got the admonition that she should work on flossing more. I'm pretty sure they can't actually tell, and also that they just assume that no one actually flosses daily.
A friend of mine went to the dentist after 6 months of particularly faithful brushing AND flossing, and she still got the admonition that she should work on flossing more. I'm pretty sure they can't actually tell, and also that they just assume that no one actually flosses daily.
I am conducting this experiment now. The hygienist always makes my gums bleed and says that wouldn't happen if I flossed more. So I'm changing from flossing very rarely, maybe every couple weeks, to twice a day. I suspect it won't make a difference.
74: It'll definitely make a difference. Source: had the same problem at the hygienist's until I started flossing, then it completely went away.
Although I'm using the disposables so Halford is laughing at the six months I'm wasting.
Oops, I'm misremembering. They actually said to brush, but not to use any toothpaste. They claimed the toothpaste wears away enamel over time and doesn't have much benefit.
My dentist told me that my brushing was causing my gums to recede. She told me I didn't really need to brush either, because I produce enough saliva to protect my tooth enamel from bacteria. I do need to floss though. All my cavities have been caused by not flossing.
I had my teeth sealed for free in second grade and again after my adult teeth came in in the socialist utopia I grew up in. I didn't have a cavity until my early 20s, despite pretty lax oral hygiene for a long time. Much of that is genetics but now my cavities are all in molars and developed after the sealants fell off. Come to think of it, we also ate a fluoride tablet every morning first thing at school. If there's proof that as long as you have fluoride you don't need to brush or floss, I can be a case study.
I went years with really poor brushing habits and have never had a cavity. I suspect that in a few years it will be proven that all the flossing, sealing, brushing, etc. is irrelevant and what matters is the bacterial microbiome in your mouth that either protects or destroys your teeth, similar to the effects of microbes on weight or intestinal infections. Or at least, it will be proven unless Big Dentist suppresses the research. Then they'll offer mouth flora treatments like they offer fecal transplants now.
73-76: I also had that problem with the bleeding. Used the disposable flossers religiously, problem went away, got great grades from dentist and hygienist wrt gums and interstitials.
I, ahem, never flossed or used toothpaste until a couple of years ago - i did always brush my teeth very thoroughly, which a lot of people don't - and have only ever had one cavity.
I got fluoride mouthwash in my socialist utopia school, but only twice a month or something.
Just make sure if you're saving time and getting a fecal and oral transplant at the same appointment that things don't get mixed up.
Those plastic floss picks are a blessing. If you're at all bothered by flossing you should try them.
Then they'll offer mouth flora treatments like they offer fecal transplants now.
Yum.
I imagine that a successful oral microbial transplant could be accomplished via a long makeout session with someone with a good history of oral hygiene. See 78.1, laydeez.
I'm pretty sure they can't actually tell
I don't know about this. My wife always gets praised for being a good flosser.
My gums also don't bleed at the dentist, and they did pre-flossing.
Also: I contest that there has been conflicting flossing techniques advice from dentists in this thread. Everyone agrees that you stay against the tooth and make a Y up under the gumline.
I was saying that my hygienist actually does a sawing motion (incorrectly) and that it's annoying.
Ironically, I have dental flourosis, so the discolouration on my front teeth that looks like bad teeth or hygiene ... isn't.
I more or less never floss (overlapping teeth, I can only floss about 30-40% of them, even when I do), although I brush thoroughly, chew sugar free gum, and use a mouth wash.
Jesus christ my kids are obsessed with each other's genitals. How often do I say "Our privates are PRIVATE"? Very often.
Well, not Ace. She doesn't have much access to her own, and isn't very concerned with others'.
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http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jun/08/andy-murray-amelie-mauresmo-coach
That's quite cool. First high profile male player to appoint a female coach.
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xelA has a hand sign he uses for 'pick me up'* but if that doesn't work he 's realised that a nut grab or pulling down my trousers is also effective at spurring me into not ignoring him.
* not sure where he got it from, or if he's invented it. It's like an open and closing fist gesture with the thumb up.
"It's like an open and closing fist gesture with the thumb up."
Isn't that the sign for milk or nurse? Maybe that's why he's grabbing and squeezing when you ignore it.
You're right! That is the gesture, but he uses it to mean pick me up. He'll do it when he's in his high chair and wants out , for example.
That is the gesture, but he uses it to mean pick me up. He'll do it when he's in his high chair and wants out , for example.
A friend's kid, was taught to say "May I be excused" when he wanted to leave the dinner table, which quickly got shortened to "Excuse me." He was still in some kind of booster chair at the table, so someone would have to pick him up out of the chair. So "Excuse me!" quickly became what he said any time for to mean "pick me up."
I contest that there has been conflicting flossing techniques advice from dentists in this thread. Everyone agrees that you stay against the tooth and make a Y up under the gumline.
That part's consistent, yes. People are reporting widely varying advice on how far around the tooth you have to wrap and whether disposable flossers are good enough, etc.
Hawaii is getting a short haircut right now. I think Jammies is having a mini-heart attack.
It's a teeny bit hard to watch all these curls fall on the floor.
Flossy was short for Florence once upon a time. It was what my grandfather called my grandmother.
A diminutive, I should say, since they both have two syllables so nothing's really short for anything.
Like Freddie and Flossie. Or Flossie and Bossy.
99: It is, but kids' hair grows like magic.
She got a bob plus bangs, which made her look younger, which we weren't expecting.
My student is horrified on FB that someone disparaged mother Theresa, and I'm debating introducing her to Chris hitchens.
I'm sitting in a parked car with a sleeping baby at this very moment! With the windows down. It's around 90° I think.
103: of course, the curls may be gone for good. Right now it's blown out straight.
106.last: She's probably not going to like grave robbery either.
102.last: originally short for Borence.
Baby woke up, pretty damn sweaty to be honest. I probably might have turned the car and AC on.
78: I agree with this and think my children just have really bad bacteria in their mouths.
I brushed my gums off my teeth horribly all in the course of a year or so when I was a junkie. I couldn't feel any pain and I was just whaling on my teeth with the fucking brush back and forth. I have considered having surgery to fix it; it is something that makes you look older (hence 'long in the tooth...')
I find the buzzy electric toothbrushes embarrassingly useful, and my dentists have approved of my tooth state since I got them. I don't seem to be prone to cavities, but my gums were less healthy.
The embarrassing thing is that I am perfectly happy to brush my teeth for two minutes when there's an alarm set to tell me when to switch quadrants and it removes zero attention from what I'm reading.
It's much harder to floss and read than brush and read. At least if you're using actual floss and not the flossers.