Flossing your teeth.

Flossing your teeth.

After tooth-brushing, flossing once a day is the next most important way of keeping your teeth and gums healthy. Brushing the teeth is great for cleaning the tooth surfaces but about 40% of the the bacteria that cause dental decay and gum problems are in the area where the teeth meet. Flossing is a great way of removing these bacteria (plaque). It is particularly good where the teeth are tight together as inter-dental brushes such as tepes won’t be able to get into these spaces.

How to do it:
Break off a piece about 18 inches long.
Wrap most of the floss around the middle finger of one hand, and a small amount onto the middle finger of the other.
Gently slide the floss between the teeth and be careful not to let the floss snap between teeth, cutting the gum.
Make a C shape with the floss as you wrap it around the tooth. Then carefully pull the floss upward from the gum line to the top of the tooth.
As you move from one tooth to the next, unroll a fresh section of floss from the finger of one hand while rolling the used floss onto the finger of the other hand.Don’t forget to floss the back side of each tooth.As long as you use the correct technique the type of floss isn’t super important, but we recommend Satin Oral-B floss.

If you’re having problems with the gum or would like some more information on oral hygiene you might want to consider making an appointment with our hygienist, Charlotte Quinn.

To make an appointment give us a call on 01 8401001. www.swords-dental.ie