Flossing helps you rid hard-to-reach tooth surfaces of bacteria and plaque buildup before they stick around long enough to cause significant damages. You can use waxed or unwaxed floss, battery-powered or electrical flossing devices, or whatever flossing device of your choice. But you need to do whatever you can to floss regularly to take advantage of the crucial benefits it offers to your oral health.
Why Regular Brushing Only Is Significantly Limited
Your regular toothbrushes miss up to 50% of your tooth’s surface, which you clean by flossing. Your teeth have 5 different sides, but your brush only reaches just 3 of them. Unfortunately, the other two hard-to-reach surfaces usually harbor some 80% of the plaque and cavities we treat at our offices. Any small pocket of space around your teeth that you regularly miss when brushing can harbor over a thousand different bacteria that can cause all sorts of dental problems, especially gum infection and cavities. In fact, just one type of bacteria alone can cause gum diseases and also attack the enamel severely to cause cavities.
How Does Flossing Improve Your Oral Health?
Flossing can help you forestall dental problems before they devolve into more complicated problems or permanent tooth loss. Some people are wary of flossing because they’re afraid of triggering bleeding gums. But on the contrary, regular flossing can help promote your gum health, forestalling issues like bleeding gums. In a study involving 51 pairs of twins, where each one of a pair either brushed only or brushed and flossed, those who brushed and flossed regularly had 38% fewer bleeding gum areas than those who only brushed.
And when left untreated, gum issues like gingivitis can cause widespread damages throughout various systems in the body, from the circulatory system to the metabolic system. Regular flossing can, therefore, help you forestall many other secondary health problems that might arise from your dental problems. Want more info about simple practices that can keep your oral health in tip-top form? Reach out to us today for personalized recommendations.