Well there's a surprise, my hygienist and dentist always encourage flossing, and anecdotally my gums are way happier (no bleeding or puffing) when I'm flossing daily compared to when I'm not. I guess it could be that however my mouth is configured, and with the types of food I generally eat, I benefit from flossing but many others with different mouths and diet wouldn't.
Same here. I've had ups and downs with flossing (going months at a time with and without it). Without fail, when I see the dentist/hygienist, for the times I've not been flossing they can easily see my gums are in bad shape.
I do floss, but I always think that it’s unintuitive that something that literally causes bleeding when you start doing it ever came to be regarded as a good thing.
If your gums are regularly bleeding after each flossing round, either you're applying too much pressure with the floss (you don't need to cut your gums) or likely using a low quality floss.
I have sensitive gums and a small mouth, so my teeth have very little space in between them (thanks nature). Thanks to my dentist, I found that using higher quality floss resolved the bleeding completely, because I need to apply way less pressure to get the floss in between teeth, so it never whips/cuts the gums.
Waxed floss is better than non-waxed if I am traveling and forgot to pack it, but expanding floss is miles ahead of both.
The thread is thinner than waxed/non-waxed thread so it fits more easily, and once you put it in between your teeth, you can remove the tension from the thread and pull it with just one finger -> the expanding thread helps to clean the gunk also from teeth walls and other places that are harder to reach with regular floss.
Hygenist explained it a bit differently to me. The presence of blood is the body trying to wash away microbes and other stuff that is getting behind the gum line. The presence of blood (carrying white blood cells) and microbes cause inflammation. FWIW
Hence, no gunk, no microbes -> no bleeding gums after flossing
The other interesting tidbit i learned from that hygenist is that microbes grow on the food and gunk on your teeth, they don't attach directly to the enamel.
That makes sense. I also read somewhere that flossing is not just important to disloge macroscopic food pieces it also helps disrupt bacterial colonies that can set up in between teeth, and every since then I’ve flossed more since I know its doing something even if I can’t see it.
I think it’s unintuitive that someone looked at wheat and thought “let’s try eating that” and now we crush grass seeds to make bread on a massively industrial scale. It only takes one person to do a thing for others to copy it.
The thing is, the half-life on this is ridiculously short. My approach now is to start flossing ~2 weeks before my biannual dental appointment. I always receive high praise about my gum health.
I still floss, but you're spot on with the Sonicare. I wonder if there's a way to track Sonicare usage and dentists making up new stuff to sell you since general dental hygiene improved.
