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devbug

Off the top of my head:

* Modified Stillman's

* Floss properly; "scrape" gently with the floss.

* Water rinse after acidic drinks (like red wine). Brush a half hour after that.

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For anyone else confused, Modified Stillmans is a brushing technique. Demo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zEDhurn7zY

++ on the water rinse. It intuitively makes a lot of sense.

I've always wondered how much decay could be prevented if we just trained people to drink a glass of water after each meal.

One day I'll distribute a cola that includes a chewable calcium tablet to take after each consumption.

One thing that has done a lot for me is I've been doing more brushing without toothpaste. I do use toothpaste, but when I do it I treat it more as a fluoride treatment than as a tool to get off plaque. When I'm trying to get off plaque I use a dry brush.

Toothpaste is more than fluoride, it contains surfactants and mild abrasives to aid in the cleaning process.

As my post above indicates, this effect is really important. The plaque biofilm is really sticky. I'm not sure what's going on in GP's case, but when using a plaque staining dye to see what's going on, it's clear that toothpaste makes a huge difference in the ability to mechanically disrupt plaque. It's amazingly hard to do without toothpaste.

Abrasives on enamel! Yay..

It's all about differences in hardness.

If everything goes as planned: The abrasive is more likely to scratch what's on the teeth; and the teeth are more likely to scratch the toothpaste if everything goes as planned.

I'm not sure I understand, are you basically brushing twice? Once w/o toothpaste and once with?

That's what I do. Once to get rid of food debris. Then start with toothpaste. Then floss, rinse, and a quick brush again with toothpaste. But sadly too little too late with my teeth. They are screwed.

I rarely ate sweets as a child and avoid sugar. I rarely eat processed foods. Drink is another matter. I most likely have harmed my teeth from drinking beer/wine/smoothies and from being too rough when cleaning. I really miss my younger healthy teeth.

My teeth have felt horrible ever since they failed and were drilled and filled. And now bring me a lot of misery. Look after your teeth! Healthy teeth are incredibly attractive. IMHO.

I usually do a "milk-rinse", because I have the feeling it brings the pH back to neutral a lot quicker than water. But milk contains sugar, so perhaps a water-rinse after that is a good idea.

milk is a slight acid, so no, water would still be a better job of balancing pH, and also better because water contains no sugars or other things that might stick to your teeth.

But milk is a buffer solution [1]

[1] http://milk.polybum.com/the_chemistry_of_milk/basic_physical...

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