Tackling Your Dental Treatment Plan

Adding flossing to your regular oral hygiene can make a big difference in how healthy your gums and teeth are. But if you've been trying to floss on a regular basis and have still been told that your gums aren't as healthy as they could be, it's possible that you aren't flossing the right way. Here's what you need to consider when it comes to flossing.

How You Floss Matters

Simply sliding floss between your teeth will offer you some benefits. It'll help to remove the food debris from what you've recently eaten. This will give bacteria less to thrive on, which may help to protect your teeth from plaque and tartar development. Even so, though, if this is all you're doing when you floss, then you're not doing it right and your gums might be unhealthy because of it.

What You Should Be Doing

If you don't know how to floss the right way, then this is what you need to do.

To start, always use a clean stretch of floss between each tooth. If you don't, you'll just be spreading bacteria around that could potentially make your gums and teeth sicker.

When you floss, start by just sliding the floss in-between your teeth. Then, starting at the very top of the tooth, pull the floss taut against the tooth on the right side. Slide downwards gently. You don't want to use too much pressure, because believe it or not, floss can potentially harm tooth enamel and your gums if you're too rough with it.

As you slide the floss down, it should disappear beneath the gum line. You want this to happen. This will allow you to scoop out bacteria and plaque from beneath the gum line. When you reach this point, stop holding the floss taut and instead shape it into a more rounded, cup-like shape to improve the scooping action.

Once you're done scooping out the gums, pull the floss back up to the top and perform the same action on the left tooth. Repeat this process for all of your teeth until you've finished the entire bunch.

Precautions

It should be noted that when you start flossing the right way, it may be uncomfortable. This is because your gums are still unhealthy. As you start to remove the irritating offenders, though, you should notice that your gums seem to become less sensitive and less likely to bleed, if they do to begin with.

With these tips, your gums should be healthier the next time you visit your family dentistry office. Until then, however, follow your dentist's directions and always come in for your regular cleanings to prevent gum disease from progressing.