Call 262-484-4356 For an Appointment Today!
For the hearing impaired:
Hello, this is Dr. Michalangelo Aust and welcome to today’s bite size bit. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about how I want you to clean your teeth. I would like you to brush your teeth for 2 minutes. For children it should be in the morning when you wake up, when you come home from school and before you go to bed. Children should floss and THEN brush before they go to bed. That way we get all the stuff out from between our teeth and you can brush it out of your mouth. After the 2 minutes I want them to spend as much time on their tongue, as they can. For adults, I want you brushing for the same 2 minutes before you go to work, after lunch and before you go to bed. Before you go to bed, I want you to floss THEN brush. If you have a particular time of day that works really well for you to floss, that’s fine. When we look at brushing the tongue, I want you to spend one minute on it. It should be bright pink. When you stick out your tongue, you shouldn’t be able to see any white on it. Once you spend one minute on it and you get it totally pink, you can back off on the time on your tongue. Some people are gaggers and so they’d prefer not to brush their tongue, but I find humming or grunting or keeping your eyes wide open will help you a lot when you brush your tongue. The reason it’s so important is because on the back of the tongue are huge tastebuds They’ve got craters in them and kinds of gunk can build up in there and it makes your breath horrible.
We’re moving forward. i’ve been using a Sonicare toothbrush since college, probably 12 or 15 years. There’s another toothbrush out there that’s just fine and it’s called a WaterPik. You have to make the decision based on what type of person you are. If you’re a diligent, like to investigate and like routine and you’ll change the heads and attachements – it doesn’t matter how complicated a system is if it’s good for you you’re ging to do it, you should look at the WaterPik. If you’re the type of person where you wake up and want the best bang for your buck – forget about changing all the attachments, it will be lucky if you even change the toothbrush head once a month like you’re supposed to, then probably you want to go with the Sonicare toothbrush. The WaterPik is also for people that are starting to have signs of gum disease.
When you clean your tongue, there’s actually a tongue scraper. It looks like a circle with a handle and it’s got bristles. There are some other products. We carry products that I talk in our office, but you can get them anywhere. Breathrx is a product that I like. They have a comprehensive package about getting fresher breath. Another that I probably use and recommend the most in the office is CariFree. It has a multiple number of ingredients. I’ve educated you over the last number of days, you’ve seen that you need to neutralize acid and get rid of bacteria. Carifree changes the pH of your mouth, so it neutrilizes acid. It has xylitol, fluoride and an antimicrobial. This is a really good product. I’m curious to see how it’s going to do. It’s been performing really well for me. The next product is Xylitol. Xylitol is a type of sugar that the bacteria eat, but they can’t metabolize it. So, they think that they’re eating and they actually starve to death. So, this is a way to control the bacteria population. Three servings of Xylitol a day is the recommended dose. You need to be careful. It needs to be 100% Xylitol. Don’t go out a bunch of the stuff, because in some people it could cause diarrhea and then you won’t use it any more. You have to test it out and see how your body’s going to do with it, because it’s really strong.
So, change the toothbrush, moving away from manual toothbrushes. Get a tongue scraper. It’s really about cleaning the tongue and making sure the kids are spending 2 minutes on their mouths. With children I say trust, but verify. If they want to brush their own teeth that’s totally fine, but i go in there and I make sure that everything is clean. Do this up to the age of 8. If you feel that your child needs more then you can continue. Obviously children develop at stages. Don’t stop until they ae at least 8.
This is Dr. Michaelangelo Aust of Modern Family Dentist and I certainly hope you enjoyed today’s bite size bit.