Floss Your Teeth For A Better Smile

Awareness and new developments in the field of dentistry has given hope for maintaining teeth for a life time. Now most of us have a great deal of control to keep our teeth into old age. Parents have taken up responsibility for their child’s dental health and hygiene; more parents have taken up visiting the dentist with their young for regular checkups and treatment.

Brushing your teeth every day helps to prevent the accumulation of plaque. Brushing removes plaque and food debris from the large surface of the teeth and gums, while flossing removes the plaque from between your teeth, which is also important because as age increases the chances of having a cavity between your teeth increases.

Many people are not used to flossing, and initially flossing would seem messy and would take a long time, eventually it pays for the time spends. It’s good to floss at least once a day preferably before you go to bed. There are lot of types available in the market, try each one to find which one suits you the best and stick to it.

The most common method is to wind the floss around your middle fingers. Then pull it tight and guide it with your index fingers. You also can wind it around your index fingers and guide it with your thumb and middle fingers. Some people just hold the ends of the floss; alternatively use a floss-guiding tool.

·         Hold the floss so that a short segment is ready to work with.

·         Guide the floss gently between two teeth. If the fit is tight, use a back-and-forth motion to work the floss through the narrow spot. Do not snap the floss; you could cut your gums.

·         Hold the floss around the front and back of one tooth, making it into a "C" shape. This will wrap the floss around the side edge of that tooth.

·         Gently move the floss toward the base of the tooth and into the space between the tooth and gum.

·         Move the floss up and down with light to firm pressure to skim off plaque from the tooth. Do not press so hard that you injure the gum.

·         Repeat for all sides of the tooth, including the outermost side of the last tooth. Advance the floss to a clean segment for each tooth edge.

Dr. Desmond Gomez B.D.S

KIMS Bahrain Medical Center

Tel: 17822123, 17740485.