I’ve been flossing a lot lately. I tell you this because I know you care oh-so-deeply about my oral hygiene. But I have been, for two reasons:
1) Never, ever, EVER again do I want to hear the following words come out of my dentist’s mouth: “You have six cavities—we’ll need to schedule two separate appointments to do all of the drilling.”
2) My uncles claim that for each time you floss, you add a week to your life.
A whole week! I learned this recently at a family reunion/ski trip in Colorado. My Uncle Paul told me that he flosses and uses Listerine twice a day. My Uncle Joe does too—and he’s decided that instead of adding the weeks to the end of his life, he’s subtracting them from his age and is telling everyone he’s 47. You know—kind of like a credit card. Borrowing something from the future so you can eat your cake now (just remember to brush afterwards).
So I’ve been flossing and Listerining and even flouride-rinsing (which would be called ACTing except that I bought the natural stuff, so it’s actually Tom’s of Maining, and that’s a kind of a mouthful—ha! pun unintended). I now even have two kinds of toothpaste for added medicine-cabinet depth. I am determined to never have a drill touch my teeth again.
Plus, if I floss frequently enough I’ll be turning 18 on my next birthday—sweet deal, huh?
On that note, I will leave you with this sugar-free food for thought: My mother’s dentist (and mine, when I lived in New York) used to give out toothbrushes that said ‘ALWAYS USE THE FUZZY END’ on the handle. It’s a good point. You certainly aren’t going to prevent cavities the other way around—unless you have one of those brushes with the rubber pick on the bottom. In which case your toothbrush should say: ‘VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE.’
11 responses so far ↓
1 TimsHead // Mar 29, 2007 at 2:39 am
I’m a big fan of having depth in the health and beauty aids supply. My shower currently has three different types of body wash, depending on mood.
Also, I probably should tell you about the unmitigated joy that is quadrant root scaling, one quarter of your mouth at a time, on the gums. Needless to say, it has caused me to floss so much that I may be a teenager again.
2 rubyblue123 // Mar 29, 2007 at 4:26 am
For the same reasons as you I am heavily into my oral hygiene. Glide dental floss and tape have revolutionized flossing for me. Although I recently bought one of those toothbrushes with the rubbery nubbins all over it and so far I’m not likin’ it. Best of luck to your enamel!
3 thinlizzy17 // Mar 29, 2007 at 4:40 am
I’ve never been able to get in to flossing. I do it from time to time, but certainly not frequently enough to prolong my longevity.
4 Jacque // Mar 29, 2007 at 5:00 am
That last part about the toothbrushes made me giggle.
I’m a horrible flosser. As in, I don’t even know where my floss is right now. Ashamed…
5 James Cooper // Mar 29, 2007 at 7:26 am
Six at once! Yeep!
I just had my third, or was it fourth?, cavity filled last week. I went to the age of 24 before my first cavity and then, despite a hearty regimen of brushing, flossing, and mouthwashing I managed to get more.
Maybe I should look into fluoride rinsing as well…
6 Solomon // Mar 29, 2007 at 8:14 am
Personally, I like both ends
7 fern_forest // Mar 29, 2007 at 2:54 pm
i love flossing. i must be an adolescent by now. you’re a dental champion with the pre and post washes. i tried that for a couple days but i just don’t have the tenacity to keep it all up. brush and floss. that’s it for me.
ryc: i responded on my site, but will reiterate here. i’d put you on the list twice if i could. i’m sure you have to be signed into xanga, but you should be able to see everything that’s up there. i do go in and make all entries private after a while, but i have them all from back to 2004. i did that more when they were all public because there was something about someone being able to ( and a few random people did ) go back and read three years of my entries that gave me the heebie jeebies. but now that i’m in school, and thus protecting my shiz, i don’t think i’ll be as diligent about archiving the older ones. we’ll see.
i just reread that and thought, too much info. hahahahahaha.
8 Gabers // Mar 29, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I… erm… don’t floss.
(Brush yes, floss… not so much)
9 RodLamour // Mar 30, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Well I am happy that you listen to your Uncle Joe.
10 Boo // Apr 1, 2007 at 6:05 pm
I also floss and Listerine too. I have to being irrationally afraid of the dentist. I have not had cavities in years, but here’s the truly sucky part. After about 20-30 years, fillings break and fall out and must be replaced. I hate this so much. I can do nothing about it except to call every dentist in our phone book and ask them to describe their phobic room. So far none of them have one so none of them are telling the truth when they say they know how to treat phobics.
What is so hard to understand about not having a mouth dissection displayed on the wall for those who will bolt at the site of it? I am at the Ds now, and hope before long I can find one who has a molecule of sense about it. Really, it’s just inconsiderate and dumb. Dental phobia is like in the top five of all phobias. One would think a caring person would try to figure out how to work that. All it would take is basic common sense and consideration.
Okay, where the hell did this soap box come from? I am steppin down.
11 The Boomer Chronicles » Blog Archive » True Confession: I Never Floss My Teeth // Apr 27, 2007 at 7:40 am
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