This much we know!
My dentist told me that after the age of 40, more teeth are lost due to gum disease than to tooth decay! This much we know...
I had always thought that as long as I brushed my teeth really thoroughly then my teeth would be in good shape
I'd seen adverts for dental floss and thought it was just a gimmick so had never, ever, tried flossing.
I was mortified when I went to the dentist and she said I had gum disease. I clean my teeth really well, change my tooth brush regularly and always follow the advice about correct brushing.
Apparently you can be more at risk of gum disease if there is gum disease in your family
You can fix it, by flossing, so it goes away again
Your children don't need to start flossing until they're about 16.
You need to be able to remove plaque from between your teeth and just below the gum line. The first time my dentist flossed my teeth my gums bled copiously and I was nearly crying because it hurt so much!
Rather than using floss on a roll I found it much easier to use floss picks, which are plastic picks with floss stretched between the two prongs. It does seem a bit wasteful to use plastic picks but I know if I was using floss on a roll I would hardly ever floss my teeth, so it is worth it.
I flossed my teeth once a day, every day for a week at first and now I floss two or three times a week. My gums were bleeding for the first couple of weeks when I flossed my teeth but now they don't ever bleed.
You need to slide the floss between each of your teeth and you need to slide the floss right down below the gum line, I was a bit aprehensive about doing this because I thought it might loosen my teeth but my dentist said that on the contrary if I didn't do it my teeth would get loosened and lost through gum disease!