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At some point in the journey each of us takes toward optimal oral health, we wake up to realize that we have to take better care of our teeth and gums. Unfortunately, at this point, most of us simply increase what we are doing, assuming for example, “I must not be brushing my teeth enough”.

The problem occurs when we take action without first questioning whether what we’ve been taught by conventional wisdom’ is true or health-giving. It’s a common slippery slope because we want to make a change (we’ve awakened to the fact that we need to do something now) we rush headlong into doing more of the same.

However, without stopping to examine the fact that much of the damage in our mouths has come from conventional wisdom, we risk increasing the problem rather than finding the path to optimal oral health. We call this acting-before-thinking strategy the ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’ approach.

And so when we turn our attention to a common question we receive here at OraWellness, we see a very similar situation.

“Should I brush my teeth after every meal?”

Given the cultural misunderstandings we’ve all been taught, the logic of this question makes sense.

After all, we’ve been taught that bugs in the mouth are the (only) cause of decay, these bugs eat fermentable carbohydrates from the food we eat, and brushing removes the thug bugs and their food. While this is a partial truth (as you know, there are other more primary causes of tooth decay), does this mean that we should brush after every meal?

The problem with brushing after meals…

In a study published in the International Dental Journal titled “Can tooth brushing damage your health? Effects on oral and dental tissues” the authors state, “The toothbrush alone appears to not affect enamel and very little on dentine… Wear of enamel and dentine can be dramatically increased if tooth brushing follows an erosive challenge.”

So, what exactly is an ‘erosive challenge’?

To answer this, let’s go back to conventional wisdom. Even though we are taught that bugs in the mouth cause decay, we aren’t taught why this happens. The reason why bugs contribute to decay is that they secrete acids as part of their metabolic process and that acidic waste slowly dissolves tooth enamel.

This process is called ‘acid dissolution’.

Remember high school chemistry? Acids dissolve other compounds. In the case of our mouths, acids take apart (demineralize) the surface layer of our teeth. Before this scares you, realize that our bodies have a wonderful ability to remineralize this surface ‘acid dissolution of the enamel through contact with our saliva which we’ll detail shortly.

However, let’s be clear that acids cause ‘an erosive challenge’ to our teeth.

Going back to the study we quoted above, if we brush our teeth after an erosive challenge, wear of enamel and dentine can be dramatically increased (Just so you know we’re not over-sensationalizing this subject, the authors used the wording ‘dramatically increased’)

What does this have to do with brushing after meals?

The rub here is that most meals have some acidic component to them. Even if you aren’t drinking a ‘conventional soda’ (which is terrible for your teeth and the rest of your body by the way), we still have plenty of acid in most meals to cause an erosive challenge.

Common acidic foods and drinks that can challenge our enamel:

Here are some common acidic foods and drinks that can provoke an ‘erosion challenge’.

soda (Coke, Pepsi, etc)

‘healthy’ soda (kombucha, water kefir, etc)

anything sweet (sugar, corn syrup, honey, maple syrup)

salad dressing (vinegar is very acidic)

citrus (lemon, lime, etc)

fermented vegetables (sauerkraut, etc)

To be clear, naturally acidic foods are good for us (even sweet foods in very moderate amounts). They stimulate digestion helping us get more nutrients from what we eat as well as support a more balanced pH in our bodies. (Most of us tend toward an acidic internal environment, so having more naturally acidic foods helps our internal chemistry be more alkaline). This is the logic behind putting a squeeze of lemon in your water or having a side of fermented veggies with a meal.

You can feel the change in tooth surface…

If you tune into the feel of your teeth with your tongue, you can feel a roughness after eating or particularly after drinking something acidic. Then, after a bit of time, that surface roughness ‘goes away’ (is remineralized).

Since one of our primary aims with OraWellness is to help heal the disconnect most of us have with our mouths, here’s a free tool to help you get to know what’s going on in your mouth.

So, when it comes to eating and brushing, the game is to wait at least 20 minutes after eating before brushing.

You see, once acids in foods/drinks cause an erosive challenge, it takes a bit of time for the enamel that was weakened to harden back up. The last thing we want to do is unconsciously go scrub our teeth when the enamel is weakest as this has been proven to remove enamel from our teeth.

However, we can speed up the body’s ability to recover from acids in the mouth.

So how can we best support optimal remineralization after a meal?

The best ‘after a meal’ strategy we have found is to take a small mouthful of water and swish it around the mouth for several seconds after finishing a meal (unlike oil pulling, it’s fine to swallow the sip of water after the swish). This water bath helps to remove acids from the food/drink from the surface of our teeth to help stop the ‘erosive challenge’ while not physically scrubbing the softened enamel surface.

So, if you are brushing after meals and thinking that you are doing good, please pause, question the logic, and swish a sip of water instead!

https://orawellness.com/can-brushing-after-a-meal-damage-my-teeth/

Have you ever been using your cell phone and felt/heard a weird sort of buzzing/whining sound? I have and it freaked me out. I felt a high-pitched stinging feeling in my ear.

Having this first-hand experience has caused me to take a closer look at what impact cell phones could have on our oral and brain health.

I know, none of us wants to hear more about how cell phones could be causing trouble to our health. But, thankfully, you are one of us who desires to look at the truth rather than stick your head in the sand and pretend the problem doesn’t exist.

The risk of cell phones

Setting aside the obvious risk of using a cell phone while driving (as a side note, did you realize that cell phone use is now the #1 cause of traffic accidents?), the issue we want to bring to light is the fact that all cell phones emit an electromagnetic frequency. It’s a sort of low-level radiation.

Most of the PR you’ll hear on cell phones talk about the risks to brain health. Without diminishing this risk, we want to bring to the discussion the fact that a major component of the primary system our bodies use to protect our teeth from decay is under even heavier attack from cell phone radiation. I think of cell phone radiation as a low-level radar device that’s strong enough to scramble intercellular communication depending on how close to the phone the tissues are. More on cell phones soon…

The body’s main pathway to protect from decay

We have a system in the body that naturally cleans thug bugs out of the tiny tubes in each of our teeth. This system is the primary means our bodies have to maintain a cavity-free mouth. It’s called ‘Dentinal Fluid Transport’ and it was first researched by Dr. Ralph Steinman.

How Dentinal Fluid Transport Works

Dr. Steinman discovered that this system the body has to flush thug bugs from within the teeth is controlled by the hypothalamus, a part of our brain that sits right between our ears. Further, Steinman uncovered that the hypothalamus stimulates the parotid glands to secrete their impact to cause the dentinal fluid system to flow the health-giving way.

However, the bad news is this system can go haywire and in fact reverse which causes the flow of dentinal fluid to suck like straw from the mouth into the inner portions of our teeth (talk about a free ride for thug bugs INTO our teeth!).

It turns out that the parotid gland, as well as the main duct from the parotid gland, that delivers its secretions to support healthy dentinal fluid transport is located right under our cell phone.

So, while there may be risks to brain health (including the hypothalamus) from cell phones, given that distance plays a big role in how much risk exists for certain body tissue, we think the parotid gland is taking a beating and is not getting its fair attention on the issue. 

Solutions to support healthy parotid glands

Like we mentioned above, distance is crucial. The further away we can get from the cell phone the better. Here are a few ideas to help.

1.      Use the speakerphone

Yeah, it may be inconvenient at times, but I’d much rather take the extra step and have the phone several inches from my head than literally laying right on top of the system that allows me to live a cavity-free life.

2.      Look into electromagnetic frequency redirectors

We have a Pong on our cell phone. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. So, I tend to have it there (the placebo effect of having it there gives me a bit more comfort at least) and still use the speakerphone function.

3.      Use a headset

Call us old school, but we are not fans of Bluetooth technology that allows a person to keep those very convenient devices in their ears. Bluetooth technology emits radiation too and I don’t need more radiation into my brain by inserting a transmitter into my ear. If it works for you, great. I’ll stick with my wired headset or the speakerphone.

The ancient solution to a modern problem…

Like many of you know, our background is in the Chinese longevity arts (think tai chi). Our relationship began while studying these arts back in 1985 (oops, that dates us a bit I think).

https://orawellness.com/is-your-cell-phone-causing-your-teeth-to-decay/

We’ve been talking a lot recently about the importance of flossing, not only for our oral health but for whole-body health as well. We also recently discussed a detailed analysis of what are the best flosses on the market as well as why we are not fans of flosser picks.

However, there are some circumstances where flossing may not be the best option for you.

So, to determine if flossing is right for you, let’s first do a quick review of why flossing is such a helpful part of the path to optimal oral health.

The microorganisms implicated with gum disease, what we commonly call ‘thug bugs’ are opportunistic. Essentially, the thug bugs break down the structure of the mouth (gum tissue and underlying bone tissue).

The reason we say thug bugs are opportunistic is that they can and do live in the mouths of people who don’t show signs of gum disease, however, their numbers are not sufficient to do damage. Thug bugs are only troubling when the host immune system (that’s us) is diminished sufficiently that the thug bugs can ramp up their numbers and colonize the gum line.

Fundamentally, it’s the job of our immune systems to keep the thug bugs in check and maintain a high enough expression of our immunity to keep the thug bugs from colonizing our mouths. (If you want to learn more about the foundational role that our immune system plays in helping us get out of harm’s way from gum disease and tooth decay as well as many other ‘non-mouth’ ailments, check out our free video tutorial series, the 5 steps to a healthy mouth.)

With the importance of immune response in place, there is much we can do ‘in the mouth’ to help reduce the risk of thug bugs colonizing our gum lines.

Dr. CC Bass established 100 years ago that the ‘in the mouth’ approach to stopping thug bugs’ is to disrupt and disorganize the bad bug’s effort to organize and colonize the gum line.

As an important side note, this is why calculus/tartar is so detrimental… Over time, thug bugs build calculus up as a protective cover to keep us from being able to disrupt and disorganize their health undermining efforts so they can destroy the health of the whole body without being ‘bothered’ by us.

Ok, so far we’ve established that the vital expression of the immune response is fundamental. We’ve also established that the way to help stop thug bugs in the mouth is to disrupt and disorganize them regularly.

Flossing is so helpful because it easily disrupts and disorganizes thug bugs.

Flossing is an easy way to regularly disrupt and disorganize thug bugs along AND under the gum line.

Where mouthwash only gets 1 mm under the gum line and a toothbrush only gets 2mm, floss provides the ability to easily disrupt thug bugs up to 4mm under the gum line. And if we apply the strategies we teach called conscious flossing, we add even more benefit to this easy oral hygiene strategy.

 So, when is flossing not the best strategy?

There are three main times that flossing may not be your best option to disrupt and disorganize thug bugs. The problem with flossing is it requires quite a bit of manual dexterity to floss effectively.

The last thing any of us wants to occur is for us to think we are doing good for the body (in this case by flossing) but not realize that the job we commonly do isn’t achieving the results we seek.

Two situations where the ability to manually perform flossing well are both when the person may not have the manual dexterity to floss effectively. After all, flossing does require a lot of detailed application of hand skills. The third situation is in the case of braces.

Who should consider other methods than flossing…

1.     Physically handicapped or impaired person:

If we don’t have the manual coordination or control to be able to have steady hands and perform flossing effectively, using floss probably isn’t in our best interest as we could cause more harm than good.

2.     Young children:

Yes, we want to teach our kids how to floss well. However, we also don’t want them developing the false understanding that the flossing they do when they are 3 is ‘enough’ to perform the optimal flossing technique.

Perhaps try allowing any youngsters near you to practice while you floss so they can develop the habit. However, we like the following strategy for kids and those challenged with physical limitations.

3.     Anyone with braces:

Yeah, you can floss with braces, but if you think flossing, in general, is tedious, just imagine having to work the floss between the teeth while having metal all over the place.

The Solution to Not Flossing

The literature showing the power to disrupt and disorganize thug bugs via a flow of water has been proven over and over again for decades. While the proper term for these devices is an oral irrigator, most of us call them by their common brand names, Waterpik or Hydrofloss.

An oral irrigator is a wonderful solution for physically impaired people and young kids as well as the person with braces. We consider habitual oral irrigation to be a super awesome idea for any child. It’s fun, doesn’t require lots of dexterity, and is very, very helpful.

One word of caution, however…

Every oral irrigator we’ve tried over the years allows for the user to set the water pressure WAY too high for our comfort or for our health for that matter. The problem goes like this…

~ We find out about thug bugs and get kind of freaked out that we have a microscopic war zone in our mouths.

~ We hear that using a Waterpik will help to disrupt and disorganize the thug bugs.

~ So (here’s the fatal assumption) we figure that using the Waterpik on high pressure will be even better to blast the thug bugs from our gum pockets.

It’s not. It’s downright unhealthy for our whole bodies if we use Waterpiks in a high-pressure setting. If we use oral irrigators on a high setting we run the risk of actually pushing the thug bugs INTO our bloodstream (bad news) causing what is known as bacteremia.

We are trying to disrupt tiny bacterial colonies, not pressure wash grime off our driveways. 

So, the solution is to keep the setting on LOW. If your dial has a 1-10 scale, please no higher than a 3 or 4.

“What if I don’t have an oral irrigator?”

You can do quite a bit of good with the simple technique of vigorously swishing water in your mouth. The key here is vigor. I mean, give your neck, throat, jaw, and face muscles a workout for 30 seconds vigorously swishing water around your mouth. 

Even better than water would be to swish your saliva around your mouth! That way, you are also providing your teeth an excellent ‘REmineralizing bath’ with all the minerals naturally in saliva to repair any surface enamel loss. 

In the end, whatever strategies you choose to apply to disrupt and disorganize thug bugs in your mouth, do them regularly. The little time it takes for some well-chosen oral hygiene strategies not only helps us have fresher breath and a brighter smile but supports our whole system immune response as well.

https://orawellness.com/what-to-do-if-you-really-dont-like-flossing/

We are honored to have been asked to contribute to an expert roundup regarding whether electric or manual toothbrushes are better for maintaining oral health. 

In our opinion, the question, ‘which is better, electric or manual brushes?’ is a little too narrow, so it’s missing some important considerations. Let’s expand this a bit and give it the attention it deserves.

As we consider the reasons why brushing is so important, we see several tooth-brushing-related questions that could be addressed, including:

• What is the best method to reduce the plaque (biofilm) which is implicated with tooth decay? Is electric or manual brushing more helpful for this application?
• If electric is superior, which brand/style of brush performs the best? 
• If the manual is the way to go, which brand/style/brushing technique performs the best (and why)? 
• Where is the research that shows this benefit? 
• What do clinicians report when it comes to electric or manual brushing and their relative effectiveness at reducing plaque?
• Since the foods that we consume on a regular basis can influence the plaque in our mouths when clinicians found the plaque, did they take the patient’s diet into consideration?
• What about brushing to reduce gum disease–is electric brushing or manual brushing more helpful for this application? 

I’m sure each of us can easily add some additional related questions to this list.

(For full disclosure, we are not medical or dental professionals. We are self-educated, and we draw from our own personal experiences as well as our experience creating a global brand that helps people navigate to greater oral health.)

With all of this on the table, let’s jump into the most important aspect to consider when it comes to the electric vs. manual brushing issue…

HOW you brush is more important than WHAT you brush with.

In other words, it is somewhat important to consider what tool you’re using to brush your teeth. However, if your goal is to navigate to greater oral health, then being mindful of how you brush is even more important.

How much conscious attention are you applying when brushing? 

 We feel that our level of awareness/attention while brushing is a much more critical factor than whether we’re using a manual brush, electric brush, brushing stick (miswak), etc. 

After all, any tool we use in the mouth can help or harm depending on how we’re using it. Are we brushing gently and consciously, or are we quickly and mindlessly scrubbing away just to “get it done” prior to rushing out the door?

Any tool is only as useful as the amount of skill and attention with which we use it.

Our attention is one of the most precious resources we have. We’ve found that the best way for us to get the most benefit out of an activity is to choose to give our attention to one task at a time. 

This also applies to our efforts to support our mouths (and bodies, too).

If we use conscious awareness while brushing, we can more effectively navigate to greater oral health. You see, consistent, gentle, and conscious brushing efforts help reduce plaque accumulation, disrupt ‘thug bugs’, and gently stimulate gum tissue.

However, if we go about the twice-daily brushing habit with the same unconscious, overly vigorous technique that we used when we first learned how to brush our teeth as toddlers, then over the years we may end up with receding gums and reduced enamel on our teeth. 

Yup, repeatedly brushing in a rough, unconscious way is a common contributing factor in gum recession and enamel etching.

So, before we jump into considering what tools to use, we must first bring more conscious attention to our brushing. 

The goal here is to get into the habit of brushing gently, thoroughly, and mindfully. We definitely want to avoid the temptation to take a mental vacation while scrubbing away.

For a deeper dive on brushing strategies, feel free to check out our articles, “How To Brush Your Teeth To Reduce Gum Disease” and “How to avoid 3 common tooth brushing mistakes that can damage your teeth and gums“.

Action step:

Here’s an exercise that anyone can do to bring more attention to their oral hygiene routine. It’s really simple: have a date with your mouth!  

What we mean is actually sit down somewhere comfortable and explore gently cleaning your teeth without a time limitation. After all, whoever said 2 minutes was the golden rule for brushing your teeth anyway?

Additionally, there are a lot of common questions about, “How long should I brush my teeth?”

To do this exercise, gently brush until you can sweep your tongue over all the surfaces of your teeth and find no plaque. 

Some areas will require a little more support than others. It may take a few times of stopping, feeling around with your tongue, and then going back over it until you feel zero plaque. 

The areas behind the back molars and behind the lower front teeth tend to be particularly challenging. Here’s an article that explains more on how to remove plaque from lower front teeth.

Remember, bring conscious awareness to the task. 

We aren’t scrubbing away to get it done as quickly as we can (as over the years, this can lead to issues like receding gums). 

We are taking our time, gently brushing a little, feeling for more plaque, and gently brushing more where needed. 

The first time you try this, we suggest you do so with no paste; just use a moistened brush so that your tongue can really feel what’s going on.

If you want to take your oral health to the next level, here is an exercise that we consider to be the first step to dental self-empowerment. This simple exercise is super helpful for anyone who wants to make massive positive changes in their oral health.

Wrapping up…

So, the next time you’re brushing, notice how you’re doing it. Are you gently yet thoroughly cleaning your teeth or are you mindlessly scrubbing away?

https://orawellness.com/electric-vs-manual-brushing-which-is-better-part-1/