Have they developed a rinse for plaque yet?
Thus my routine question to my dental hygienist of 23 years’ standing. Hey, I figure I might as well ask, you know? And so I do. Every four months. I mean, I do what I can to keep my teeth clean between scrapings but, as she delicately notes, I am prone to tartar build-up. It’s not exactly a character flaw but it’s annoying anyway, so I’m always looking for a chemical assist. I can’t quite believe that there is still no mouth-swish I can buy to gently dissolve extraneous gunk while leaving my tooth enamel intact. Maybe this time the answer will be different.
No.
Thus her routine answer. She’s a good sport: If she’s annoyed by my persistence, she doesn’t show it. But neither does she stop there, this time.
No, the electric toothbrush has been
the biggest improvement
in dental hygiene
in my lifetime.
Ah. Good point. I sorta take the electric toothbrush for granted, although I clearly remember its arrival in my life.
As I wend my scraped way home, flashing my newly cleaned teeth at everyone I pass, I consider the innovations in dental hygiene in my lifetime, which is a tad longer than the hygienist’s. In the dentist’s office, cleaning as a separate activity; fluoride treatments applied after cleaning. At home, floss and proxabrushes for cleaning between teeth; high-fluoride toothpaste for maintaining aging/susceptible teeth. Indeed, I remember the advent of toothpaste containing fluoride in 1959 or 1960: a leap forward in cavity prevention.
Although I believe with all my heart that someone, somewhere, sometime, will develop a plaque-destroying-but-tooth-sparing rinse that will, in turn, spare people the need for a scraping every few months, I could reasonably spare a moment of gratitude for the innovations I already have and take for granted.
Such matters are not trivial. The older one gets, the more challenging the types of care required until the patient cannot sustain necessary treatment. Or, as my grandmother once said, “Take care of your teeth, my dear. Store teeth are never the same.”
Laurna – What a wonderful “grandmother memory”! And by all accounts, she was exactly right. We have it so much better, at least on this dimension.
There are two types of mouth bacteria — the plaque/gum issues kind and the cavity- making kind. I have the latter. My teeth look like a repeatedly paved old road, gradually getting whiter as the metal filling are replaced by the “new” white kind.
Everything is trade off. I don’t know which tooth problem is worse or better.
When gum-problems John was told he would have to have 4 operations to fix his gums, each taking a week to get over, he said nothing, but as we walked out to the car, he said, “I’m going to pay that man a lot of money to hurt me.”
Barbara – Well, I guess if I had to choose between plaque and cavities, I’d stick with the devil I know. As for gum surgery, I feel John’s pain. It’s been a long time, but I never want to do that again.
We live in hope for such a rinse. I would have thought the aging of the population would have created a large market for it.
Jim R – IKR? You’d sure think so. It would help little kids, too, before they gain the dexterity and discipline to look after their teeth on their own.
In my growing-up years, our toothpaste was a mixture of baking soda and salt.
If we had plaque build-up we got the cure-all: castor oil.
Just rinse the ones you want to keep!
Tom
Tom – Baking soda – ugh. It puts my teeth on edge just thinking about it. Mind you, it does remove stain from tea . . .