Dental Health Education

Below is a list of dental health topics available at Church Road Dental, please click on the link for more information.

Brushing teeth properly and consistently helps to remove most dental plaque, but brushing alone cannot remove plaque that is located in places that a toothbrush cannot reach - particularly between teeth. In addition to removing plaque, flossing also helps to remove debris that adheres to teeth and gums in between teeth, polish tooth surfaces and control bad breath. Flossing should take place at least once a day for two to three minutes each time to be most effective. The different types of dental floss include waxed and unwaxed, flavoured, unflavored and wide and regular.

As a result of improved oral hygiene and fluoride, more people are keeping their own teeth into old age but in order to continue to maintain healthy teeth and gums, a regime of brushing and rinsing twice a day should be combined with inter dental brushing – cleaning between the teeth. Cleaning between your teeth is made possible by the use of dental floss, interdental brushes, single tuft toothbrushes, dental sticks, rubber tip stimulators, and irrigation devices.

A healthy tongue should be slightly moist, smooth, and pinkish in colour, but a white or yellow tongue is a strong indication of a breath problem. Although not common practice, cleaning your tongue on a regular basis can be the single most beneficial treatment for bad breath.

Despite its fairly recent exposure, tongue cleaning is not new; it was practised by people in ancient Egypt, China and India.

A healthy tongue should be slightly moist, smooth, and pinkish in colour, but a white or yellow tongue is a strong indication of a breath problem. Although not common practice, cleaning your tongue on a regular basis can be the single most beneficial treatment for bad breath.

While cleaning your tongue with a brush can be satisfactory, many people find that scraping their tongue with a specially designed tongue scraper is more effective against the tendency to gag.

To clean your tongue, start as far back as possible and make brush strokes outward toward the front of your mouth. You need to apply some pressure but not enough to cause irritation to your tongue. Once the surface debris from your tongue has been removed, apply a small bead of toothpaste to the head of your tongue cleaner and gently coat the surface of your tongue (as far back as possible without gagging). Ideally, leave the toothpaste on the surface of your tongue while you brush your teeth normally and then rinse your mouth.

For more information of tongue-cleaning tools and techniques, consult your dentist or hygienist.