Talk:Teeth cleaning

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 September 2020 and 22 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Radrose xo.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Too many requested references

is it really necessary to request a reference that says that toothbrushing can prevent build up of plaque and calculus....... :| Bouncingmolar 11:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge with tooth or not?

Do not merge.

• Do not merge: if a person wants to know more about teeth, they just click on the little blue link.--35.11.210.84 23:46, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

• I agree with this User. --70.156.195.103 23:42, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

The merge tag was placed because the two pages duplicate each other's material.--Nectarflowed ^T 05:49, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

• Merge: This entry should be about the anatomy, biology, and physiology of teeth, with the dental hygene page covering human tooth care. dafydd 21:54, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

• Professionaly it doesn't make any sense to merge.

To merge is also a good way to piss off a lot of Dental Hygienists who take their profession very serious! --Tandarts 12:42, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

• I vote not to merge. To me they are distinct subjects, and could each become great articles without overlapping too much. ike9898 19:53, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

• Merge? Oral hygiene is not only about teeth. It's "oral" - what about tongue, gum and interdental space? There so much to write about oral hygiene: toothbrushing, flossing, mouth rinsing, use of fluorides .... --Metju12 13:22, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

• Um, not merge, definitely not. - Stoph 04:43, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• Do not merge. User:Lehla 02:44, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

• Another vote against merging. J.H 20:23, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• Don't Merge

$$$ don't make sense to me

Is the following comment necessary or even remotely useful in the article: If dental cavities develop, it can cost thousands of dollars (US) to drill out the cavities and insert dental fillings. - As this depends heavily on the location, age, condition & wealth of the reader, be it in a Nordic country, Southern Africa or somewhere in North America? I'd say that at the barest minimum it should be rephrased. Also is dental flossing really that useful?

• Simpel way to find out about the floss: just don't floss any more! But don't be surprised that you'll make me and my dental collegues (wherever you are geographically) very happy to earn MO MONEY drilling your unflossed teeth to pieces. --Tandarts 12:46, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

• I tried your suggestion, thanks. My dentist thinks I'm lying when I admit that I don't floss - rather than when I'm actually lying (claiming to brush once a day or more). WilyD 18:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• Thats not right, whats a couple thousand dollars when your LIFE is concerned? Drilling my teeth into pieces isn't very appealing to me or most other people. And flossing is important to some ixtent.

Brushing the teeth

I've added a section about brushing the teeth to the article Toothbrush. If you think it belongs somewhere else, feel free to move it. I've also linked this article from that page. – b_jonas 14:31, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Brushing and Flossing

Anyone have any information on why to brush after breakfast in the morning? How do people eat breakfast without brushing their teeth first? The food would taste weird and disgusting. I recommend brushing before breakfast and before you go to bed since that is when bacterial buildup is most rapid. Also, does anyone have information on when to floss? I know it's once a day, and I think it should be before you brush at night. 71.250.68.205 15:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

• I do that. I brush after breakfast so my teeth dont smell like my breakfast when I go to school. The breakfast tastes the same really. Also I brush at night before bed.  :-)

• People lived for hundreds of thousands of years without brushing at all. If you're game, you can try a little experiment - don't brush your teeth for a few days and see what happens. Most likely, you'll find nothing happens. Bad breath takes several days to set in, possibly weeks. I have no idea how long it'd be before it affects the taste of food, but it'd be weeks, at least. Hope no one I know reads this, but I routinely go a week without brushing, because I forget, and it's entirely unnoticable. WilyD 16:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• First of all, a massive proportion of the population suffered dental problems in the past and it wasn't until recently that people lived past 40. Our modern society and routines should be adapted to take into consideration our extended lives and dental hygeine is a very important one. You don't just brush your teeth to smell nice, but to ensure healthy and long lasting teeth. Secondly, no-one in the past ate massively destructive amounts of granualted sugar as many peple do today. The sugar content of food, specifically finer sugar, never used to be a problem. However, as diets change, not to brush your teeth is very damaging.
  • Thanks for your unsigned comments. But we're not talking about not brushing your teeth for years - which might, or might not be problematic - but about not brushing for a day or a week. Both of those are perfectly safe, hygenic and reasonable. Seriously, look at a comment like How do people eat breakfast without brushing their teeth first? The food would taste weird and disgusting. - the mind boggles. In all honesty, I probably brush my teeth around once a week and no one ever notices - my dentist claims she'd believe me if I told her I brushed twice a day and flossed. Now someone may say this is why my back is getting hairy or my hair is going gray, but I'm not a sucker. WilyD 14:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

You are lucky to have a natural resistance to plaque and tarter formation. Different people haev different susceptibilities to its formation. Variables that affect it include: the natural pH of your mouth, the microflora makeup in your mouth (that is, you simply don't have very many cavity-causing bacteria), and your immune response. There are a few others, including how often you rub your tongue against your teeth (which is kind of like brushing), diet, etc., but those are the main three. Plaque is mostly bacteria (at least 500 different species), with some of their sugar-scaffolding by-product. Tarter (or calculus) can be thought of as a calcified "graveyard" of these bacteria. The "graveyard" is hard because of the calcium deposits, because the calcium sticks to the tunneled scaffolding that the dead bacteria leave behind. New bacteria form on the old (dead) bacteria and the tarter keeps "growing." In your case however, since you either don't have the right kinds of bacteria to make this process happen very fast, your pH hinders the calcification of the "graveyard" of bacteria, and/or you have one heck of an immune response, you don't get any. Congratulations, and I hope that helps.

Also, most bad breath is caused by the bacteria in the posterior (back) half of the tongue. The best way to clean that area is tongue scrapers or with a toothbrush. Do it lightly, though, because it is easy to damage the tongue. The vast majority of the remainder of bad breath is from the bacteria between teeth (the plaque and/or tarter).

Technically speaking, if given a choice, it is better to brush *after* breakfast than before (remember the saying "brush after meals"?), because you want ot get rid of the food and sugar you botained during that meal. You don't want that food to be gobbled up by bacteria all morning, do you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dentdude (talk • contribs) 02:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Promotional editing

There appears to be a campaign by Wrigley's gum to promote chewing sugar free gum as a healthy way to look after teeth. See edits by 195.216.25.222 and Ellielancaster. 195.216.25.222 added this edit to this article which was replaced by Ellielancaster after the original was reverted. The claim may be true, but because of conflict of interest and POV concerns it needs checking by neutral editors and reinserting only if sources and appropriate weight merit. Thanks. -- Siobhan Hansa 13:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Milk?!

Holy crap, this article suggests that milk might be *good* for your teeth? How many ***babies*** develop cavities because of irresponsible parents giving them milk all the time?! [1] Milk has sugar in it! Whatever "benefit" it might have is completely and utterly overthrown by its sugars. -- Sy / ^(talk) 03:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Babies get cavities because, when an infant is allowed to fall asleep with a bottle in his or her mouth If the bottle contains a fermentable carbohydrate, (like pop, sugar water, juice, or milk) and the liquid is allowed to pool around the teeth, the bacteria that are present will form acid, which eventually leads to decay. So its not especially the milk that causes the problem, milk is of course good for teeth because it contains calcium, but if you leave it in your babies mouth for too long it will lead to a decay. So do not give your babies something that contains sugar right before they go to sleep, give them water.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.102.98.71 (talk • contribs) 00:31, 4 June 2007.

"Good" is a very relative term; Milk is fermented by all of the main cavity-causing bacteria (S. mutans, lactobacilli sp., actinomyces sp.) because they all have beta-glucosidase activity (an enzyme that breaks down lactose into usable sugars for the bacteria), which eventually leads to acid production when given lactose (the main sugar in milk). This isn't a very big deal if the milk isn't in a person's mouth for very long. It *is* a big deal if it sits in the a long while, OR if it is a frequent occurance (a sip of milk every 10 minutes will have the same detrimental results). Also, the claim that milk is "good" for your teeth is mostly true of children, (not so much in adults, whose teeth are already formed) for the most part. Also, teeth are the most suseptible to caivites during the first two years of eruption of a given tooth, which is why babies are especially vulnerable (all of their baby teeth are erupted at around 24 months, giving them extra vulnerability for different teeth until age 4). Fluoride varnishes greatly protect against this, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dentdude (talk • contribs) 01:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Professional teeth cleaning - Incorrect link

In the "Professional teeth cleaning" section, the Google Scholar link takes you to a scholar search of "Frequently Asked Questions". It is not specific to teeth cleaning at all. - Wrichik - October 27, 2011 - 16:24 IST

I removed the the section questioning cleaning's effectiveness, as it entirely lacks credibility and academic sources. In fact, tracing the one source (5) leads to the original study which contradictorily states:

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Conclusions

The research evidence is not of sufficient quality to reach any conclusions regarding the beneficial and adverse effects of routine scaling and polishing for periodontal health and regarding the effects of providing this intervention at different time intervals.

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http://www.nature.com/ebd/journal/v6/n1/abs/6400317a.html

baden 197.159.144.43 (talk) 10:00, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Uh - for starters, there's no google scholar link there at all. For second, all of the sources work fine, and show what they purport to show - that the scientific evidence has been unable to show that more frequent tooth cleaning leads to better outcomes. Which is also what that quote says. WilyD 10:12, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Time Required for good brushing

I was hoping to find some guidance on how long teeth should be brushed for. As the fluoride in the toothpaste is supposed to strengthen them it will need a minimum reaction time to do its job. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nzkennys (talk • contribs) 09:13, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

The time will vary depending on the method and the toothbrush. Use of a hard toothbrush too strenuously or for too long may be excellent for the prevention of plaque but cause itself damage to the gums or palette. If you see pink or red when you're spitting out then you're overdoing it. This was the warning that I got from my dentist who congratulated me on the lack of plaque but advised that I should either brush for less time or get a soft, possibly a child's, toothbrush. A soft toothbrush used regularly is perfectly adequate for preventing plaque.

My brushing routine combines brushing my teeth while doing various balancing poses on one leg. It exercises my legs and balance senses while making the brushing more fun and slightly more challenging. Useful in an older gentleman. Time is about 3-5 minutes and depends on how well I feel each surface has been attended and how often I lose my balance. ;-) Obsessive compulsive traits help but any kind of being methodical works. 92.29.12.4 (talk) 13:46, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Good oral hygiene

The article says "Good oral hygiene helps to prevent cavities, tartar build-up, and gum disease.[citation needed]". A citation is needed? "Good hygiene prevents disease shocker. Proof demanded!" Really?? 92.29.12.4 (talk) 13:46, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Not necessarily. E.g. see Hygiene hypothesis. The citation tag is needed until someone bothers to find a source to support such a statement, as obvious a statement as it may be. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 08:30, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Odontexesis

In some dictionaries I've found odontexesis as a term for professional tooth cleaning, but I don't know how widely used it is. Should it be in this article? --Doric Loon (talk) 14:19, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Doric Loon, I have never heard the term before. I do not believe it is in common usage anymore. There are no hits on pubmed for this term [2]. There are about 25 hits on google books, the vast majority of which date from the period 1925-1950. There are a few more modern book results, however these are either non English language or a dictionary-type source. Suggest that this term could be added to a "history" section. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 08:28, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Matthew Ferguson. That's very helpful. I see that if you put "Odontexesis" into Wiki's search field, it now brings you here to talk - maybe that's good enough to help anyone searching? --Doric Loon (talk) 08:43, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: ENGL A120 Critical Thinking

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 15 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Senakim (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Senakim (talk) 07:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)