Think you’re doing everything right when it comes to your teeth? You may be shocked to find that there are still some things you may be doing wrong. Brace yourselves…
- Brushing your teeth straight after breakfast. You should wait at least 1 hour after eating breakfast before brushing your teeth. If you’ve eaten something acidic like orange juice or fruit for breakfast, the acid that’s in these softens the enamel on your teeth, so if you brush too soon you could abrade the enamel. This will in time make your teeth very sensitive. As most of you like to leave the house clean and fresh, our suggestion is to not have anything acidic for breakfast.
- Hard brushes could be damaging your gums! Unlike hair, once you’ve damaged your gums & teeth they will stay like that forever. Purchase a soft brush and make sure you change it every 3 months so that it’s as effective as it needs to be.
- Rinsing with water after brushing! Most of you will want to rinse your mouth after brushing, but this is in fact washes off the good fluoride. So instead of rinsing with water after you brush, just spit out your toothpaste and don’t eat or drink anything for 30 minutes.
- Using mouthwash after brushing your teeth. Similar to rinsing after you’ve brushed, it can wash off the good flouride from your toothpaste. A good mouthwash containing fluoride can be great in preventing tooth decay and can be used at a separate time to brushing ideally midday or late afternoon.
- Grazing/snacking is bad for your teeth. When you eat, bacteria breaks the food down which causes acid to form. Saliva will then neutralize the acid. So within an hour of eating, your mouth has been neutralized again. The problem comes when you eat again; you then have another acid attack. This is when decay starts happening because the amount of acid outweighs the amount of time that your mouth is neutral.
- Drinking bottled water. This may surprise you but water from the tap is actually better for your teeth than bottled water. There is fluoride in tap water. However only some parts of the U.K. have water fluoridation such as Birmingham, Southampton, Newcastle and Bath. Fluoride reduces tooth decay. So save your pennies, the environment and your teeth – use the tap!
