And floss too. If it’s the evening, that’s a perfect time to do it. If it’s the morning, great time as well. Middle of the day? You’ve probably had food, brush them teeth. If you’ve recently (but not immediately after, wait a bit, drink some water) eaten, that’s a perfect time to brush. Especially if you’ve recently had something sugary (avoid sugary stuff, also like I said not too recently).
And if you can, and haven’t recently, see a dentist.
Your teeth are precious, and hard to replace. Lack of proper dental care can in many ways amount to a tax on the poor, where a lack of proper preventative care can turn mouths into an unaffordably fixable mess. Get people in your community to take care of their teeth too.
There’s really only a few situations where you shouldn’t be brushing your teeth right now: you vomited recently (brushing after vomiting can degrade the protective coating on your teeth), or you brushed recently.
Not having the equipment for it on you is only an excuse this once, carrying that stuff with you is a good idea. You eat and drink throughout the day, so you should brush and floss throughout the day. And who knows when you’ll need to be presentable? You don’t want to barrage your comrades, friends, partners, or “path to promotion” (your bosses) with bad breath.
I will never floss, its a conspiracy made up by Big Floss to make me engage in the most tedious activity to ever exist. I will simply allow the plaque to calcify between my teeth which creates a seal forming a unitooth which doesn’t need flossing. Explain that liberals.
You shouldn’t brush directly after eating acidic foods for the same reason you shouldn’t after you vomit. Wait after eating to brush.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that, it’s not exactly a post I planned out. Not quite effortpost tier.
Also, random fun fact, I pH tested a meal I have relatively frequently (took small bits of the meals components, in about the ratio the whole would have, then blended 'em up), and it came out as almost perfectly neutral (greens tend to be basic). I didn’t do that for the pH or anything, I was a lot more curious about what harmful materials it might contain. I had access to some relatively fancy unused lab equipment (or, more accurately, a friend did), so I figured I might as well use it.
Interestingly, while most brown rice had fairly high arsenic levels (as is expected), brown rice from this one local asian market was at white-rice levels. I didn’t ever end up doing anything meaningful with the data I collected (it’s just in a notebook I have), and it wasn’t really proper enough to be turned into a real study. Didn’t even ask the people at the asian market where they got their brown rice from (and then they shut down during the pandemic).
fix my depression and related issues with having a routine and/or habits
You’re gonna damage your enamel if you brush that often. You do not have to brush every time you eat (unless you have a specific situation where a dentist advises you to, I guess).
Also, the concept of halitosis was popularized in order to advertise mouthwash
your enamel
Interesting story about that, actually. A number of my family members just don’t have enamel on their teeth (or only in some spots), some weird genetic thing (not erosion, just like that from the start). My baby teeth were like that, and also got quite fucked up for unrelated reasons. Then my adult teeth popped in, they had abnormally strong enamel (apparently something from the other side of the family). There were times where I didn’t treat my teeth very well (common with addiction), and yet I’ve never had a cavity. I don’t feel heat through my teeth, really at all.
I do however get excessive plaque, and am somewhat at risk for gum issues. That, along with my strong enamel, means that a few dental professionals have independently told me it’s better for me to brush more often than others, and to be “less gentle”. I also at one point had braces (messed up baby teeth carried over a little), and at that point in particular they told me to brush a lot (so there wouldn’t be a color difference between what’s under the brackets, and the rest).
So I brush three times a day, instead of the usual two. My post wasn’t really my daily brushing routine, it was more begging people to brush a little (too many people don’t). And to floss. And to go to the dentist (I know a guy who didn’t go for two decades, until he finally got insurance that covered it. Wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but also he had several cavities).
halitosis
It’s not like it doesn’t exist, though. And, more to the point, a lot of “bad breath” seems to have more to do with what they’ve eaten, than underlying medical condition. I mentioned that this was a call out elsewhere, so lets just say: please, please, please stop eating the stinky fish. At least it’s not those Scandinavian ones that stink up all of everything, but it’s still not pleasant.
Dentists are almost all scammers and are less trustworthy than a used car salesman nursing a particularly vicious coke habit. Yeah I go to the dentist like everybody else but holy fuck the number of times different offices have tried to run scams on me is beyond any other profession including oil change places. If you go to a new dentist and they recommend you like five different procedures totaling thousands of dollars they are almost certainly a scammer. Unfortunately you can’t trust reviews, different dentists at the exact same office can have totally different levels of honesty.
Yeah, finding a good dentist is really important. The “family friend (or similar) that you personally know from things unrelated to dentistry” strat has worked pretty well for me. “Small town in a big city” type of thing, I guess. Often I connect with dental medical professionals (orthodontic, dentist, etc,) over academic pursuits. Lots of them are quite smart, and like to exercise it. That strategy doesn’t always work well with other medical fields, and personally knowing dentists can be hard (it’s not like there’s a huge number of them).
It reminds me of the situation with therapists, a lot. Quality can vary wildly, cost can vary wildly, and peoples experiences often do not line up, even with the same person.
It’s not like therapists or dentists are inherently bad, it’s just a situation that can easily turn predatory (especially considering, like I said, how struggles with prevention in poorer communities lead to great cost later on).
