Have your gums bleed? Do you know how to solve this problem?
1.Bleeding gums
Bleeding gums are not normal. Lots of people think if their gums bleed, it doesn’t hurt them so it’s not a problem. If your gums bleed, chances are you’ve got gum disease or gingivitis.
Bleeding gums can be very common. Your gums can bleed if they are red, swollen, or inflamed. Gums bleed because they’ve not been cleaned very well over a period of time. The way to prevent gum disease is to floss your teeth well, have a good oral hygiene regime, and brush your teeth.
Lots of things that can affect gum disease such as hormonal changes, not brushing your teeth properly, missing areas and leaving debris next to your gums and certain medication as well. Things like smoking also affect your gums and can cause gum problems too.
2.The importance of interdental cleaning
It’s really important to keep the interdental area clean because you can get food, debris, stains in between those areas of the teeth. Usually, when you brush your teeth, the toothbrush bristles don’t go right in between the teeth. So you either need to use floss or brushes to clean this interdental area.
Lots of people avoid flossing their teeth because they believe that when they floss, their gums start bleeding. The truth is that gums are bleeding because you’re not flossing your teeth. What happens is that bits of food and debris get stuck in between your teeth in these interdental areas and inflames your gums. So when your gums are inflamed, they bleed.
One way to stop your gums bleeding and stop your gum disease is to floss and clean in between your teeth either with floss or with the right interdental brushes.
If you start flossing for the first time or you’ve not to floss for a long period of time, you’ll find that the gums in between your teeth are really inflamed because you’ve not done it and you’ve got so much plaque and buildup of debris in between your teeth. So when you first start flossing, you may be shocked because your gums will start bleeding. But if you floss every day for two weeks, that’s the amount of time that your gums will heal and become healthy again. At the end of the two weeks, you’ll find that your gums are no longer bleeding when you floss.
Use floss in areas that are really tight or you can use brushes in areas that are gappier and bigger. You may either have teeth that are very close together or you can have gums that are receded up. In that case, you’ve got a bigger area in between your teeth. So the floss won’t really remove all the bits of food and debris in between your teeth and you need to use a brush. If you go to your dentists, they will show you which brush is the best size. You can get different size brushes depending on different size gaps in between your teeth.
You should floss once a day before you brush your teeth. When you floss, you’ll remove all the debris from in between your teeth and then you can come along with your toothbrush and remove all that debris away.
I do think flossing needs quite a technique. Whereas lots of people find that using the interdental brushes is a lot easier because you just literally need to put that in and out in between the gums. But brushes don’t work for everybody because if you’ve got really tight gaps, you’re not going to be able to fit the brushes in between your teeth. It’s only for people with gaps that are large enough.
When people try to floss their teeth, they don’t really know the correct technique for flossing their teeth. They end up jumping the floss up and down and traumatizing their gums. There is a correct technique as to how to floss your teeth.
When you clean in between your teeth, you might find that when you remove the floss from in between your teeth, there’s debris on there that you’ve removed. If it’s a long string of floss, you can move on to the next piece of clean floss to do your next interdental cleaning. If it’s on a floss set or a hand-held piece of floss, you can wash that debris away so you’ve got cleaner floss to go on to the next tooth until you see the nice and clean at the end.
To sum up, you can use the interdental brushes for up to a week each. But if they become splayed, broken, or misshapen, you need to discard them sooner than that.
This is just a broad overview of interdental cleaning. It’s best if you go to your own dentist or hygienist and they will make you a personalized plan as to which floss areas to floss and which areas to use interdental brushes on. That’s unique for your mouth.
3.How to use interdental brushes?
- Place it in between your teeth and put it all the way through. But do you make sure that you don’t put the gum on the inside or your palate on the inside? So you’ve got to orientate it through your tooth.
- Press it alongone side of the tooth, and then retract it back.
- Give it a wash if you’ve got debris on it, reapply it into the same place, press it against the other side of the tooth and then retract it back.
In that way, you’re cleaning both of the surfaces of the teeth. And you’ve got a nice clean area at the end. Generally speaking, you don’t have to lubricate these brushes with any mouthwash or toothpaste. But if your dentist recommends otherwise, they might have some personal recommendations for you.
4.How to use floss picks?
- Open your floss set,remove about six inches worth and snip it off at the end.
- Wrap it in between yourfingers so that you’ve got about two inches worth of space in between your fingers. Essentially the smaller amount of space that you have the better because when it’s really long, it’s hard to get inside your mouth. A nice small amount of floss in between is about two inches.
- Slide it downin between your teeth and follow the contour of the tooth so it goes underneath your gum.
- Slide it back outand remove all the debris out from in between that tooth surface.
- Go back down andthen go down the adjacent tooth. Follow the contour of the tooth and then bring it back up and then flick it out.
- Do this on all ofyour teeth and go all the way around the mouth.
- At the end of doingthis you can go over and brush your teeth so you can remove all that debris away from your teeth and gums.
Once you remove the debris from in between your teeth, you can move along to a fresh piece of floss so that you won’t reintroduce the same debris back into that tooth surface area. Dentists recommend that to floss at least once a day and floss before you brush your teeth. This is so you can remove the debris away from your gums and then it can be brushed away at the end.
You can floss it all ages: you can start quite young so you get into the habit of flossing. Essentially, as soon as you’ve eight or nine years old, you’ve got some adult teeth in there you can start flossing. You should floss your teeth all the way through to an adult.
To floss your teeth you need two teeth next to each other. If you’ve got a tooth that is standalone, you don’t need to floss that tooth because you’ve got enough access all the way around to be able to brush it well.
5.How to use water flossers?
You could also use a water flosser, which is an electric flosser. You have a tank of water that’s held within the flossing equipment. Hold it right next to your gums, and a jet of water jets in between your teeth and it removes all the debris and bits of food left next to your gums once you move that jet of water around your gums. That’s another really good way of cleaning your teeth without using all the plastics that come with the flossing and the floss sets.
