Floss, brush and rinse – the right way!
It turns out our parents were right. Brushing our teeth, flossing and using Listerine daily does protect us from cavities. As I used to defer to authority, I duly complied and have never had a cavity to this date.
What would have been useful is to learn how to brush. I applied the tenacity of a Mr. Clean to my brushing endeavors using a hard tooth brush and essentially brushed my gums away. As a result, I had to have a gum graft this week which while less unpleasant that I was led to expect, I would not recommend to anyone.
Essentially they take cadaver tissue and graft it to your gums to protect the base of your teeth and prevent them from falling off.
Conclusion:
- Floss, brush and use Listerine daily
- Use a soft tooth brush or an electric toothbrush (I highly recommend the Sonicare Elite 7500)
- Very important: Do not use a horizontal motion with the toothbrush when brushing the front and back of your teeth. Use a vertical motion going from the gums to the top of the teeth (top-down for the top teeth, bottom-up for the bottom teeth).
[…] Behold the “glogosphere” I’m not the only one who got some new gum tissue stitched into their mouth and decided to blog about it (so called gum graft logging or glogging). Check out these posts from my gum graft cousins: Mehling.org: Gum Graft Fabrice Grinda: Musings of an Entrepreneur » Floss, brush and rinse – the right way! get the dreaded gum graft surgery so that cold winds don’t […]
Any comments on how long it takes for swelling to go down? Its been 3 days after my gum graft, and I’m not in pain but still have hideous swelling on the right side of my face! Just trying to figure out if its normal to have this swelling still… thanks
Alison: It should be ok within a week…
What about smiling and laughing?? That’s all that really hurts me… the swelling is mostly down, but it still hurts my face to laugh and I can’t physically smile! I’m going away this weekend and want to look nice and presentable in the pictures! Thanks for the input!
Ouch mofo…that hurts just reading it! You will find the gum scrubbing effects in the area of your dominant hand too!….I’m right handed and sure enough left outside gums has some similar effects. Luckily I was not as aggressive!