Comment by e40
9 years ago
Nothing. The toothpastes without SLS made me gag. My dentist said using no toothpaste was fine. My Sonicare toothbrush and flossing does the job just fine, and the floride in the water handles the rest.
9 years ago
Nothing. The toothpastes without SLS made me gag. My dentist said using no toothpaste was fine. My Sonicare toothbrush and flossing does the job just fine, and the floride in the water handles the rest.
Turns out the benefits of flossing are not backed by research. Largely manufactured by industry:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f7e66079d9ba4b4985d7af350619a...
I really don't believe this. The spaces between my teeth are very small, and without flossing, brushing can't clean out the food that gets wedged in there. I've actually flossed after brushing (with a Sonicare) and I still remove food with the floss.
And going right back to the original topic here, those bits of food wouldn't be as big a deal without all of the added sugars that we have now, right? Isn't tooth decay caused by sugar-eating bacteria?
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I picked up a pack of 10 (count them 10) interstitial toothbrushes at the 99¢ store. One of the best dollars I ever spent. Brand name: "Aim interdental brush". They work just about as well as flossing (I still keep some floss stick around for the occasional piece of stuff that gets stuck that these don't get out). Their business end looks like a tiny artificial Christmas tree, with a small plastic handle.
Heh, anecdotally, I used to get a couple cavities a year, pretty consistently, never flossed. I started flossing religiously a few years ago, and after a week of spitting blood out in the sink afterward, I got used to it. Haven't had one since.
Anecdotally, my wife has been flossing forever and has cavities all over the place. I, on the other hand, never ever flossed, rarely brush my teeth more than once a day, and have no cavities.
Just because nobody bothered to research it doesn't mean it isn't true.
You can even use some salt, or baking soda if you feel like you need a "deeper clean" or the like.
Yep, this is in fact how the nobility did it back in the day!
IIRC, they used something like the Arabic 'miswak', a twig with a sort of shredded end. Is that about right?
I'm using pressure water (with a pinch of moutwash) - really brings out the white out of teeth. also no matter how much I brush and floss, there's always stuff coming out of gums while watering. I don't do it often as it's quite intensive, but hey, it helped me a lot.
Fluoride isn't exactly healthy either though, is it?
The dose makes the poison - there's a pretty dramatic correlation between low level fluoridation like the kind that's added to water and oral health, with not much at all linking it to health issues.
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/fluorid.htm
http://www.nature.com/bdj/journal/v192/n9/full/4801410a.html
I would not say that is dramatic or even meaningful. The findings are full of statements on how the the studies they considered were "of moderate quality, but of limited quantity". And they conclude with saying basically that they have no conclusion.
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