You can save your teeth with this one ordinary trick

This post has a goal. That goal is to make you a committed flosser. I want this for you because I want you to save your teeth and have them for the rest of your life.

Saving your teeth is a big enough win, but the consequences of not saving your teeth are bigger than just the loss of the actual teeth. Gum disease, essentially bacteria that breeds out of control beneath the gumline, has implications for general somatic health overall, and for heart disease in particular.

There are aesthetic considerations, too. You may think the worst that can happen if you lose your teeth is that you get dentures. And that is bad enough, as you have to get used to a big appliance in your mouth, covering your soft palate, and being generally uncomfortable. But that is not the only woe. Without your teeth rooted in your jaw bone, those bones shrink and dissolve. Over time, your face will change its shape, taking on the characteristic look of the wizened doll faces made out of dried apples. In short, you’ll look like an old witch with sunken cheeks and a jutting chin. And over time, you need new dentures fitted to your decaying oral bone structure.

This site gives an overview of the stages of gum disease. What starts as gingivitis will turn into advanced periodontal disease. It’s gross, and it’s grim.

Wait, don’t click away—this is a good news post! You can save your teeth, and more easily than you think.

You need to floss. Every day. As many times as you can, but at least once very thoroughly at night. A water flosser machine is best; I cannot recommend them enough. Also, keep plastic flossers in your bag/car/with you, and use them after eating.

Flossing is vastly more important than brushing. Yes. I know that sounds strange, and unlike what you’ve heard all your life. No, I am not saying “don’t brush your teeth.” Brushing matters for surface tooth decay. But flossing matters more for oral health. A cavity can be filled, but gum disease goes all the way to the bone and implicates more than one tooth. Brushing does zero to dislodge the food and bacteria beneath the gumline and between your teeth. Brushing is not enough to save your teeth.

Amanda, my dental hygienist, gave me a regular cleaning yesterday. The dentist gives me severe anxiety, not because I’m afraid of procedures or pain; I’m not. Anesthetic works, and I’m unbothered by having my teeth or bones drilled. The fear comes from the many times I’ve learned something severe is wrong. This tooth is cracked, this one needs crowned, this must be pulled and you must get an implant.

Teeth are a universal human dread. They show up in our dreams, and I believe they represent death. We have nightmares about losing them that are really about having to look into the face of our own eventual moldering corpse. A tooth dream means, “memento mori, bitches.”

I’m conditioned to be filled with anxiety every time I go to the dentist. Yesterday was different. Over the past few years, I’ve had deep root planing and scaling done in addition to regular cleanings. This is where the dentist numbs you up and does a cleaning like the one you’re used to, but deep below the gum line, scraping the tartar of the roots of your teeth. It is this tartar below the gum line that allows bacteria to fester. Your gums start to detach and form pockets. If it goes on long enough, the bone starts to rot, your teeth loosen, and it’s game over.

One of my pockets was verging on 8 millimeters (that’s bad). In addition to the root scaling, the dentist has placed little packages of antibiotic below the gum line to clear out the bacteria. At my visit four months ago, the 8 millimeter pocket had shrunk to 5 mm. At the dentist yesterday, the pocket was healed completely.

As Amanda went through my gums with the depth probe yesterday, she kept saying, “Wow. You’re doing a great job-your gums look really healthy.” How healthy? Here’s what she said at the end, and I very nearly started crying from relief.

”In all the years I’ve worked on you, this is the first time you had no bleeding. That’s huge for you. There was none at all. You have no more pockets anywhere. You’re healed.”

As you know, I’m one of those sensitive boys, so I don’t mind telling you I’m getting misty-eyed writing this. The relief from a deep dread is so sweet. Embarrassingly, I’ve broken down and cried in the dentist’s chair when they’ve told me I’d have to lose yet another tooth. It’s a treat to leak water for something positive, I suppose.

If I haven’t convinced you yet to become a dedicated flosser, and also to have deep root scaling if you have gum disease, let me appeal to your vanity by using mine as an example. I am extremely vain about a few things: my hair, my eyebrows, and my smile. They are, to me, my best aesthetic qualities. I have an attractive smile that people comment on. I’ve been lucky that all the dental problems I have are invisible to the eye. Did you know I have no molars on the upper right of my mouth? In a month I will get my latest implant on that side crowned with a tooth so I can chew normally again.

If my gum disease advanced, I would have risked looking like that. I sit in front of a camera at least once a week to do my show, and I’m very fussy about how I look when doing the show. Looking attractive matters, whether it’s fair or not. People take other people more seriously when they look good; it’s human nature.

Again, the good news is that none of the worst consequences of periodontal disease have to happen to you. Floss religiously, get regular cleanings, and obey your dentist’s instructions. If she tells you that you need deep root scaling, do it. One session costs about $300 where I am. It’s worth every penny, and it’s far cheaper that replacing lost teeth.

If you practice good flossing all along, you’ll never have to do the remediation that I had to do.

And it’s not painful. Do not fear this. You get numbed up and don’t feel a thing. Afterward, there may be a small bit of soreness for a day, but it’s so minor I didn’t even take an Advil. Went right back to normal eating.

Here’s to a long and healthy relationship with your teeth!