Twice: after waking up,before bed. Floss, tongue cleaner , mouth wash is a part of the ritual. On a related note : can recommend electronic tooth brush.
The amount of individuals here who brush post breakfast or not at all in the morning is alarming ! Of course, mental health can affect the schedule but that’s a different conversation and is understandable.
The rest, how is your dentist not harassing about your oral hygiene?
Important caveat: just because electric toothbrushes are good does not mean “more power = better”. For natural teeth, you should always brush gently. Don’t go ham just because you’ve got a powertool in your hand!
If your brush has multiple intensity modes, always use the lowest. Same thing goes for your grip! The whole point of an electric is that it can get you clean with almost zero pressure. Seriously: apply no more pressure than necessary to get full bristle contact. It will extend the natural life of your teeth and gums by years.
Not really, because I don’t go straight to eating. After getting out of bed I first brush my teeth (or go to the toilet, depends), then I shower. Afterwards I make breakfast. So between brushing my teeth and eating there’s roughly around 20-30 minutes. With a glass of water before taking the first bite there is no taste left.
I’ve thought about brushing before or after breakfast for a while and neither way seems great. Before is great because you lose the bad breath from the night. After is nice too, except you like coffee for breakfast. General rule is always: Don’t immediately brush before or after eating, especially if you eat anything acidic, that fucks your teeth up.
I hate it so much. I can’t stand standing in the bathroom in front of a mirror and fiddle with my teeth. That whole experience is just wholy depressing, and then the foul taste on top of that. I try to at least brush and use mouthwash when I wake up and am groggy enough to not mind that much.
I mean I couldn’t do that either, not for very long at least. I have the tendency to walk around aimlessly when doing something like that (same when I’m on the phone), which means I have to clean the floor after. So mostly I either brush my theeth in the shower or I sit down/lie down.
Damn, I just noticed that my theeth brushing habits are probably very weird, bit hey, at least that way I do it 2 - 3 times a day.
Genuinely feel for people who have to spend time in enclosed spaces with you.
Congratulations for winning the genetic lottery with the robustness of your teeth, but brushing is also about hygiene. Body odour isn’t physically bad for you, but it is for everyone who has to be near you. Same with your breath.
Dude your breath probably smells and people are too polite to tell you.
On your tongue there are a lot of anaerobic microbes (on everybody’s tongue, it isn’t a hygiene thing, they just live there). When you have your mouth closed for a long time, it creates a oxygen poor environment and these microbes thrive in that. They cause bad breath, so after people sleep or simply have their mouth closed for a while, the breath starts to stink. If you look in a mirror and your tongue has a kinda white or brownish tinge, this is because of the microbes. Everybody should brush their teeth and especially their tongue after sleeping. When looking in a mirror the tongue should be entirely pink and look healthy. Clean the tongue as far back as you can, to prevent bad breath.
If you smoke this isn’t true, your breath will stink no matter what.
So for your teeth it probably won’t matter much not brushing in the mornings, but for your breath it matters a lot.
A lot of y’all are clearly not as depressed as I am. It has been a struggle most of my adult life to force myself to brush my teeth. It’s something I’ve gotten much better at lately, and I’ve luckily not had any serious dental issues yet. But I’m shocked that no one else has said they struggle with it. Y’all are inspirations.
Doesn’t your mouth taste bad if you just don’t do it regularly? Honestly even general hygiene concerns aside, I’d do it twice a day just to get the fresh feeling. Maybe you could try some different toothpastes to find one that makes you really want to do it and not just feel like it’s something you should do?
During my more depressive episodes my dental hygiene seriously suffered, and due to covid I didn’t go to my bi-annual checkup. Last summer I got a sudden and extremely painful toothache, and it turned out my teeth could make swiss cheese jealous. I ended up having to have one of my molars pulled (I had to expedite the process a bit after it literally started falling apart), two root canals (one of which I still haven’t had), and a fuckton of small holes to fill. The whole ordeal ended up being really painful and expensive. I’m still not as on top of it as I should wish, but I found that buying an electric toothbrush made it a lot easier, and I also force myself to brush at least every morning. The pain and debt are also good motivators…
Years of depression put me in a spot where I had multiple huge face-swelling problems. Brushing is an afterthought when you hate life and want to die. I hope you’re doing well.
Wow I never connected this with anxiety/depression but that makes a lot of sense now that I hear it.
I didn’t go to the dentist and didn’t brush my teeth but for maybe the occasional time or for a spurt of a week or two here and there for about the last 15 years, starting in college. I always thought I was special because my teeth didn’t seem to know the difference and my mouth “felt” better. It wasn’t until about a year ago when I had a moler snap in half while eating dinner that I realized I might have an issue. I went to the dentist to have that replaced and was told I needed to make a change or this would keep happening.
I’ve now managed to get myself back on the habit of brushing at least once a day, usually before bed. My mouth hated it at first but after the first month or so it was so much better. I can’t believe I let myself go like I did…
I have a pattern which really works for me where I wake up, brush my night guard and brush my teeth with no toothpaste and then eat breakfast. That way I don’t have the horrible mint toothpaste / orange juice clash I’m sure many of you are familiar with.
Then at night I floss and brush with toothpaste, and put in the night guard.
I used to make myself floss only every other day (like if I didn’t floss last night I MUST floss tonight), which I highly recommend rather than sporadic or no flossing. But I recently upped my game to “every night except special occasions”.
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