Dental Health & Hygiene | Unionville | Markham Dental Smiles

We Can Help You Build a Stronger Oral Hygiene Routine

Good oral hygiene habits are crucial to keep your smile beautiful and healthy. Our team of dental professionals can not only provide services to protect and maintain your teeth in our office; we can provide helpful tips and strategies to help you take a proactive approach to your own oral health.

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What You Need to Know

Brushing

Brushing your teeth is absolutely vital to your oral health. But it’s not necessarily enough to brush your teeth; you need to brush your teeth properly for the practice to be effective.

You need to brush your teeth at least twice a day, but if you can, it’s better to brush three times a day. The process starts with a soft-bristled toothbrush and a Canadian Dental Association-approved toothpaste. Hold your toothbrush at a 45-degree angle with the bristles pointing toward your gums. Using small back-and-forth strokes, clean the entire surface of each tooth, paying special attention to the gum line. Repeat the process for the front, top, and back of both your upper and lower teeth.

Flossing

Your toothbrush can’t reach all of the places it needs to, no matter how good your technique is. Dental floss works plaque out of the places your toothbrush can’t touch, like between your teeth and just under the gumline. You should floss once every day.

Using an arm’s length of floss, wrap the ends around your index fingers on each hand, leaving about two inches of floss between your fingers. Gently work the floss down between each tooth and as far as it can comfortably go past the gumline. Do this with every tooth, winding the used floss on one finger, and unwinding fresh floss from the other as you go along.

Tongue Cleaning

Studies show that cleaning your tongue can be very helpful in fighting bad breath when used in conjunction with brushing and flossing your teeth. While you can simply use your toothbrush to clean your tongue, the research indicates that a tongue scraper is probably the most effective tool to use when trying to eliminate foul breath.