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survey, nearly a third of patients confessed to lying to their dentist about how frequently they flossed their teeth – which was rarely. You also need to stand in front of a mirror in a bathroom, and hold the floss with two clean hands. Flossing can be unrealistically difficult to teach young children or hard for seniors to manage. You can even use them while watching TV.įlossing, on the other hand, requires hours of education, constant motivation and concentration. You just pick one up and control it with just two fingers of one hand. One of the reasons, toothpicks have endured is because they are so easy to handle. Nowadays however, toothpicks have been replaced by far safer and effective tools to maintain oral health and hygiene, such as floss, interdental brushes and oral irrigation devices.ĭespite toothpicks becoming obsolete, many people still like the feel of a toothpick and use them after a meal. The colonies of pathogenic bacteria between your teeth usually remain undisturbed.
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You can safely use a toothpick by moistening and softening its tip – and by using the right technique, toothpicks can be used to dislodge large food particles trapped between your teeth quite well.īut that’s about it. Poor technique can result in abrasion and damage to your teeth and gums, along the gum line. In recent times, toothpicks have fallen out of favour as a tooth cleaning method. Back then, Egyptian, African and Indian people used small twigs and the bark from trees – to clean their teeth and remove food debris. The use of toothpicks to clean the interdental spaces between your teeth goes back thousands of years in history.
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