A sound body needs sound teeth.
This is easy to say, but for me, not so easy to follow through on. I know I need to take better care of my teeth, but it’s so much easier to just brush when I need fresh breath and not worry about it otherwise. And please, forget about flossing. God, do I hate flossing.
But it is becoming increasingly obvious that poor oral hygiene is strongly linked to serious, serious medical problems like coronary heart disease, stroke, adverse pregnancy outcomes, diabetes and bacterial pneumonia [Barnett 2006]. Indeed, there are now mainstream websites devoted to presenting the public at large information about the so-called Oral Systemic Connection, and arguing “that the health of your teeth and gums may have a significant effect on the overall health of your body”.
This is terrible news for slobs like me. There’s nothing fun about taking care of your teeth. No broadway musicals have been written about flossing (at least I don’t think there have been). But it is not unlikely that all of the healthy changes I’ve been making in my life–like losing weight, eating better, and exercising regularly–will be undone by my lackadaisical attention to my teeth and gums.
I realized this week that I need to do something about this. For no specific reason I can point to, I decided that I would floss after supper last night, then brush, then rinse with Listerine, then rinse with Fluorinse (a fluoride rinse from Oral-B). This was a bit of a production, but my mouth and teeth felt amazing! More amazing, I had no desire to snack or even drink a Diet Coke last night after I’d done this.
I thought about it all evening: maybe the key to making this work for me would be to link it to my healthy eating habits. If I were to brush after meals, it was not only a step in the direction of better oral hygiene, but I could also “spin” it to myself as a way to make the “No Snacks” part of the No-S diet easier.
I thought about it some more and realized that there was no way I’d be able to keep to a system that required me to brush after lunch. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have less than 10 minutes to eat lunch–there’s no way I could do it and then brush, too!
And then I remembered something I’d read about years ago: a mint that cleaned your teeth. I even remembered the name of the mint: Zellies. I decided to google it and learn a bit more about it with the idea of simply ordering some and using them for my post-lunch teeth cleaning rather than brushing. What I found was something much more interesting (and serendipitously close to my initial attempt at solving this problem).
As it turns out, the DDS who created Zellies, Dr. Ellie Phillips, has a blog about oral care called Ask Dr. Ellie. In her blog, she talks about her complete mouth care system involving a pre-brush rinse with Retardex or Closys, a brushing with regular Crest toothpaste, a rinse with Listerine, and a rinse with fluoride. NO FLOSSING. Awesome. She also encourages you to use at least 6.5 grams of Xylitol per day after meals (in the form of gum, mints, or powder). Essentially, her system targets both gum disease and mouth acidity that causes tooth decay.
Her system is to be used twice a day, once after breakfast and once before bed. This seems like a perfect system for my needs. While I wait on the rinses, which unfortunately I need to order from an American website, I will continue my initial stab at this system and incorporate ground Xylitol after lunch and supper and some mints and gum throughout the day. I will keep you posted as I tackle this extremely important issue. In the meantime, I recommend checking out the blog and the Zellies site.
