My Dental Hygiene Routine to Good Oral Health & Happiness

I've assembled a bevy of appliances and products from an electric toothbrush to a water pik to keep decay-prone teeth and inflamation-prone gums healthy and pink. It's also a story of finding a special, young dentist, who really works with her patients to teach us about preventative dentistry.

My dentist, Dr. Colleen, has assured me that my heretofore sketchy dental health is not a character flaw. She has explained that some people are genetically predisposed to have dental problems, because we have a higher bacterial count in our mouth. In addition to tooth decay and gum inflamation, this bacteria and the resultant disease have been linked to many systemic health problems including heart disease. After several tooth extractions, three 3-tooth bridges, two crowns in my front teeth, more root canals than I can remember and a severe bout with gingivitis, I finally have had 3 great no-problem visits with Dr. Colleen. This is the daily dental hygiene regimen that helped me achieve that. It is an extreme routine, because that's what it takes. I was one of Dr. Colleen's first patients, and she has been instrumental in working with me over the last 2 years to get my dental health in line with the rest of my otherwise healthy body. I plan to live to 100 and be eating apples at that time with my own teeth!

To prepare my mouth and gums for a thorough cleaning, first I rinse with a strong mouthwash that kills bacteria on contact. I always try to make sure that it has methyl salicylate and thymal. Leo has a public health background and he stresses that this is an important first step. If my mouth has a lot of bacteria, and I'm going to take a piece of floss and dig around my gums, it's a really good idea to get my mouth as bacteria-free as possible before doing anything invasive. So I make sure that I swish the stuff around for a good 30 to 45 seconds. Leo compares it to a nurse taking a sterilizing pad to your arm before giving you a shot.

If you have bridgework, you must use a special dental floss to clean up under the bridge. Each bridge and gum, line up a little differently. Believe me, with 3 of them I know that they vary. Be sure to really take that threader floss and get all the nooks at crannies.For this task, I use Thornton Periodonal Floss. It's good for your health and your pocketbook. It costs about 4 times more than typical threader floss, but it is really better. (Even with dental insurance, I had to pay $1,800 for each of my bridges.). At each dental visit Dr. Colleen shows me the little spots that I missed and I then work hard on those spots too.

After thorough cleaning around the bridges and crowns, I move on to the rest of my mouth. When your prone to gingivites it's critical to do this regularly. For this I use Johnson and Johnson easyslide dental floss. My teeth are really close together and I can't get regular floss to work. But this works like a charm.

After my bout with gingivitis Leo bought me a water pik. It did take a little getting used to but now I love it. After loosening up all that food and bacteria, I like the idea of swishing it away with water and getting it extra extra clean. If you've never used a water pik as part of your daily dental hygiene, you've been missing out on a really fresh taste in your mouth. Sometimes if stuff gets caught under a bridge, only the water pik will take it away.

I take my electric toothbrush - a Braun Oral-B Vitality Sonic Toothbrush - and brush all over and pay good attention to my gumline. Dr. Collen, has also explained to me that at night my mouth secretes saliva and this ends up on the back of my lower front teeth. So I have to make sure that that area gets really clean.

After using my Braun Sonic electric toothbrush, I have to take a regular toothbrush and brush the back of my back teeth. For me this is necessary because these teeth are crowns that are part of 3-tooth bridges. It's major bucks if these fail.

i use Chlorhexidine Gluconate Oral Rinse to really take the bacterial count down in my mouth. It's by prescription only and is really effective. I first used it when Dr. Colleen was redoing a bridge that failed. It tastes horrible!!! And it's activated by saliva so it doesn't wash away during the day. If you don't brush your teeth and clean your tongue every day, they'll stain and turn black. The taste comes back a little during the day, but it's manageable. During heavy-duty dental work periods, I use it at night too. Or if I notice a little bleeding around the gums, I use it at night too. But the bad taste will wake me up at night so I don't do it then.

The most amazing thing that Dr. Colleen has taught me is that my teeth can fix themselves, if I give them a chance. Did you know that? If your enamel gets soft, your teeth can harden it up again. Well to give my teeth a little more help in that department, at night after I've done everything else, I use a Prevident, a flouride booster. I think that it's making them whiter too.

I probably spend about 15 minutes twice a day on my dental hygiene now. And for the first time in my life I feel like my teeth won't be falling out someday soon. My overall health is excellent and as I prepare for the next half of my life I want to keep it that way. Finding the right dentist has helped immensely. So has the new generation of electric toothbrushes and waterpics that help me to keep my mouth really really clean. Now if the company actavis could only make that Chlorhexidine Cluconate Oral Rinse taste better!