Your commitment to your dental health
At JL dental care we often say that having a healthy mouth and gums isn’t something we help you achieve alone. We must have a partnership with each of our patients where we work together to protect your smile. Our part of the commitment is advising and educating you on the techniques and tools which will help deliver this result. Your part of the commitment is actually carrying out our advice.
So what is the advice and what are the tools?
Gum disease (periodontitis) is the most common cause of tooth loss in the U.K. and happens when bacteria in the mouth forms plaque, the soft white sticky deposits on your teeth. When the gums become irritated and inflamed by this plaque they swell and cover the bacteria. This makes it difficult for you to remove the bacteria without visiting me or one of the other hygienists here at JL dental care.
The advice we give is to help prevent this plaque in the first instance. We advise you to brush, floss and rinse twice a day. Depending on the advice given by your hygienist there is also a range of tools we advise using which include:
Interdental brushes
In the practice, you have probably seen the small brushes which come in a variety of colours (the most popular brand being TePe). This reason these interdental brushes come in such a range of colours is that they are colour coded by size. The larger the spaces between your teeth, the larger the brush. The size will then help you to effectively clean between your teeth and remove harmful bacteria and food debris. Cleaning with an interdental brush prevents gum inflammation, cavities and bad breath.
Tongue scraper
This device will help to remove bacteria and food debris from your tongue and is particularly helpful in patients with halitosis (bad breath). Almost half of our oral bacteria live on and in the deep crevices of our tongue. The scraping action of a tongue scraper collects these toxic tongue coatings (which can range in colour from clear, white, yellow, or green) and removes them from the body.
An electric toothbrush
When someone asks us whether electric or manual toothbrush, we always say “whichever works best!” The choice is highly personal and whichever hygienist you see here at the practice will be able to work out the dental routine to best protect your dental health.