The Importance of Flossing
Flossing is an extremely important part to your overall oral health, and can sometimes be overlooked. Everybody should floss at least once per day, and brush their teeth twice a day. Flossing cleans plaque and food residue from between the teeth and helps prevent cavities and decay. Flossing is a much harder skill to master than brushing your teeth, but practice makes perfect. If you have difficulty flossing with traditional dental floss, you should try to use other products like handheld flossers or a water flosser. Single-use handheld flossers are not quite as effective as traditional floss because they struggle to reach tough angles, but are much better than using nothing at all.
Preventing Cavities & Decay
Flossing daily removes plaque and bits of food from between your teeth and cleans your gums. Plaque is a substance made up of bacteria that sticks to your teeth and slowly erodes enamel, which in turn will allow decay and eventually cause cavities. Cavities are not only painful when eating and drinking, but if they go untreated they will slowly worsen and lead to more harmful problems. These problems include toothaches, infection, and rot which results in tooth loss. Plaque can also build up and harden into a substance called tartar which will increase your risk of getting gum disease. It’s extremely important to remove this plaque and tartar from both the surface of your teeth by brushing, and from in between your teeth by flossing.
Preventing Gum Disease
Flossing away the plaque and tartar build up in between your teeth greatly decreases your risk of getting gum disease. The early stages of gum disease, commonly known as gingivitis, is detectable because your gums begin to become inflamed. If left further untreated, gingivitis can become periodontitis, a more advanced stage of gum disease. Periodontitis causes your gums to begin pulling away from your teeth as well as reduces your teeth’s bone support. This causes your teeth to become loose. Gum disease is a serious condition that needs to be treated immediately, as it can spread not only throughout your whole mouth, but into other parts of your body as well. The lesson to be learned here is that flossing is extremely important to your oral health and should be done every single day.
Contact Gentle Dental
If you have more questions about why flossing is important to your oral health, contact our team of family dentists at Gentle Dental. With three locations throughout southern Maine, Gentle Dental is here to provide the area with dental care and resources. Give us a call at one of our offices or if you are looking to find a new dentist in South Portland, Biddeford, or Topsham, fill out the new patient form on our website!