So it’s a bit late for me as I’ve already had a shed load of fillings and even an extraction (and need another) but I have learnt a lot of stuff from the current TV series ‘The Truth About teeth’.
Most notably some of the things that I didn’t realise, that they have been talking about are this – after you eat, for about 40 minutes your tooth enamel is softened by the acid in the food that you have been eating – to the point where if you brush your teeth straight after eating you will be brushing off the enamel – how many people knew that? And to think that I have purposely been brushing my teeth straight after breakfast for years in order to clean off the food from them. In future I will try and do what the recommend and brush my teeth before breakfast.
The next thing which I am totally guilty off is continually snacking throughout the day. This never gives your teeth a chance to recover as they are constantly being attacked by food acid all the time. I need to get that one sorted too as I am a terrible snacker all day long.
They are also recommending that you brush your teeth for 2 minutes each time, twice a day. Now I tried this with a little kitchen timer that I have and 2 minutes feels like a really long time! Particularly when you have a small toddler demanding your attention. So I have allowed myself to only do one minute in the morning (and even that feels long!) and to do 2 minutes at night time. Hopefully that will at least help a bit as it is longer than I had been brushing for!
I noticed when I went to the app store today that a lot of people are taking note of this fact as the second most popular trending search was for a ‘tooth brushing timer’! At least people are taking note although like I say, for many of us it is a bit too late. But if I can get my toddler into the right habits then hopefully he won’t have such bad teeth as myself and his father.
The rpogram also shows some really innovative dental techniques that are starting to become available – like transplanting one tooth to replace a lost front tooth that has been knocked out. There could be many innovations like this in the future which means our children don’t have to live the with horror of bad teeth like we did in the past.
Another interesting thing was the test they did on home teeth whitening kits. I was interested in this as I had been thinking of getting one but the truth was that none of them (and they tested quite a few kits from the cheapest ones to more expensive ones) seemed to make any difference in the testing that they did. Only one kit came out half a shade lighter. Shame 🙁
| Although they did a test on home tooth whitening kits and none of them seemed to get any results, I have to say that I am tempted still to try them for myself. There are so many available online for a reasonable price that i can’t help but think maybe there must be at least something to them. The one shown on the left has hundreds of reviews and still ends up with an average of 4 stars. Surely hundreds of people can’t be wrong. Maybe I’ll give these ones a try and come back with my own review. Watch this space! |
‘The Truth About Teeth’ is currently showing on Thursdays 9-10pm on BBC1 and will be available on the iPlayer shortly afterwards.
