As you know, we at your Epping Dentist strongly recommend you brush your teeth twice daily with fluoride toothpaste. Fluoride is great for your oral health as it protects and strengthens your tooth enamel – and thus helps prevent tooth decay.
The toothpaste’s fluoride disrupts any acid on your teeth and produces better-quality tooth enamel. It also makes it harder for the bacteria in any plaque on your teeth to produce acid.
As the Sydney water supply is fluoridated, you will also acquire fluoride from your tap water. Over time, this fluoride enriches your saliva so it can better counter any acid on your teeth and thus lessen decay.
And where does this acid come from? It’s a byproduct of the sugars we eat. The bacteria in your mouth eat the sugars and produce acid, which attacks tooth enamel.
You probably know about avoiding added sugars. But the smaller amounts of natural sugars in fruit and milk can’t be easily avoided. That’s why even natural fruit juices need to be drunk in small quantities in one sitting and through a straw. Rinsing your mouth with clean tap water afterwards – and spitting it out – helps, too.
The amounts of fluoride in commercial toothpastes and the Sydney water supply are regulated. Together, they protect and strengthen your tooth enamel against the corrosive effects of acid and decay. Your Epping Dentist can also tell you that, amazingly, fluoride can also help repair small cavities! It remineralises them!
Take care when brushing your young children’s teeth.
Children’s toothpaste has less fluoride in it than adult toothpaste. Until they are about 3, gently brush whatever teeth they have with a rice grain-sized piece of it on a small soft brush. From 3 to 6, you can use a pea-sized amount.
Encourage them to spit their mouthful – not swallow it – when you’re finished your two minutes of brushing. They will find this very difficult, so be patient. When they are old enough to transfer to a pea-sized piece of adult toothpaste, that habit of spitting – not swallowing – should be automatic.
As your children get older, you will probably still have to supervise their two minutes in the morning and evening, the pea size, the brushing technique, and the spitting. It’s all very tricky for children, as your Epping Dentist knows. But for healthy, strong teeth, it’s worth it!
To find out more, please click this link for an appointment with us:
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9868 3037
9868 3037