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Don't rinse with water straight after toothbrushing
- stygiansonic 7y agoAlso from the article: "It's best to floss before brushing your teeth."
- zzleeper 7y agoWhy? I would have thought it makes more sense to brush, then floss, then wash at the end so the fluoride stays longer
- starpilot 7y agoI'm guessing the toothpaste is able to penetrate the gaps that were filled by debris.
- allovernow 7y agoI suspect it doesn't really make a difference, there may have been one mediocre study which showed a couple percent improvement, or more than likely one opinion simply gained more traction than the other. Both orders have downsides - if you floss first, you risk forcing detritus back between your teeth while brushing. If you brush first, you risk leaving some of the gunk from between your teeth on the surfaces - although perhaps now it will be bound loosely enough to be washed off with water. Either way you're probably getting rid of most of the organic material anyway.
- tzs 7y agoThe idea is that stuff dislodged by the flossing gets brushed away and spit out when you brush. If you floss after brushing, it is more likely the floss debris will remain on your teeth. You’ve just moved it from between to a side. That was the argument I found when I recently looked into this. It makes sense if all you’re doing is brushing and flossing. If there are further steps in your routine that would take care of the flossing leftovers, I expect the order does not matter.
- jackewiehose 7y agoI always thought that flossing mostly moves the dirt from between your tooth to another side. So I always brush after flossing. (I also never thought about fluoride so of course I rinse after brushing and I will continue to do so because otherwise it would be very uncomfortable)
- whalabi 7y agoAs far as I know a function of flossing is to disrupt bacteria in places that your brush can't reach. Presumably another is to dislodge food stuck there. I can imagine that floss + rinse would accomplish both well enough, especially if it's twice a day (but surely most people brush one a day)
- xenospn 7y agoSo I'm supposed to leave the toothpaste in my mouth? For how long? EDIT: I'd also like to point out that I have been rinsing my mouth after brushing for the last 40 years, never used mouthwash, and never had a cavity.
- cameronbrown 7y agoYou can spit but don't add water. That should get rid of most of it.
- chpmrc 7y agoHave you ever brushed your teeth?? (Just joking)
- HenryBemis 7y agoI think we all use excessive amount of toothpaste. That makes us get a mouth full of foam, that subsequently forces us to rinse instead of just spit.
- throwaway287391 7y agoRight but the question is for how long? Surely you're not supposed to never put water in your mouth again, so how long should you wait? 1 minute? 10 minutes? An hour?
- 7y ago
- staplung 7y agoNote that the rationale is that it washes out most of the lingering fluoride, which is presumably more of a concern in the UK where the water isn't fluorinated.
- asdff 7y agoIn the US, drinking water supplemented with fluoride for this very reason, so feel free to rinse out your dislodged food scraps after brushing and ignore this advice from the NHS.
- jonathanbull 7y agoWater in the UK is also supplemented with flouride. I think the point is that toothpaste contains more.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y agoOnly about 10% of it, according to Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoridation_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoridation_by_country (75% of those with community water systems in the U.S., for reference.)
- edoceo 7y ago10% of water in UK, not 10% of toothpaste.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y agoSure. Of course toothpaste has flouride. There's nowhere that's untrue, I assume. But the person I responded to made a claim about water flouridation in the UK which was mostly false.
- jml7c5 7y agoThere are actually fluoride-free "natural" toothpastes that have unfortunately been growing more common. As one might expect, they are of dubious effectiveness.
- words3425434 7y ago"Using a mouthwash that contains fluoride can help prevent tooth decay, but don't use mouthwash (even a fluoride one) straight after brushing your teeth or it'll wash away the concentrated fluoride in the toothpaste left on your teeth. "
- kalium_xyz 7y ago>Don't rinse your mouth immediately after brushing, as it'll wash away the concentrated fluoride in the remaining toothpaste. That is the point.
- sillysaurusx 7y agoIt's weird that we don't know what teeth were like before fluoride was invented. The knowledge isn't directly accessible to everyday people. Sure, we know some examples, but what about the averages? Was everyone's teeth just completely screwed, all the time? How could evolution work that way? We need our teeth to eat. It's further complicated by the invention of processed sugar, which ruins teeth. Before that, presumably it wasn't quite as bad to live without fluoride. But again, the knowledge seems kind of hard to find. Anecdotally, I lucked out by not listening to a dentist when they said one of my teeth had to come out. Still have it six years later, and it's fine. Apparently it was a rather intense toothache that eventually went away.
- HenryBemis 7y agoConsidering that "back then" (e.g. 2000 years ago) people didn't consume sugar, soft drinks, and their food was mostly natural and sparse (no 3 meals and 2 snacks), plus the fact that people didn't live to 100yo, I would assume that tooth decay was less of a problem. Interesting article for about 12,000 years ago: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/06/tooth-decay-archaeology/4307319/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/06/tooth-d... The comparison to London 200 years ago is astonishing, sugar is bad for us a hundred different ways!
- quickthrowman 7y ago> Was everyone's teeth just completely screwed, all the time? How could evolution work that way? We need our teeth to eat. Grains have sugar in them that cause tooth decay. You can blame agriculture, mostly.
- Darmody 7y agoWe do know how bad teeth were a century ago. There's even evidence that humans several thousands of years ago didn't have as many cavities as we do today because of their diet. I'm not in a position to give you advice, but be very careful with your teeth. A tootache can lead to an infection that if not treaded may kill you.
- elfexec 7y ago> It's weird that we don't know what teeth were like before fluoride was invented. We have teeth from fossils that are a few thousand years old all the way to over a million years old. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1295624 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129562... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/oldest-human-fossil-unearthed-ethiopia-180954470/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/oldest-human-f... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/01/oldest-human-outside-africa-discovered-fossil-jaw-israel-science/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/01/oldest-human...
- oneepic 7y agoReally? This is on Hacker News?
- caillancm 7y agoThe main point, about not washing, isn't standard dental advice and widely known, unless I'm mistaken. Personally, toothpaste tastes so bad I find it hard not to rinse without gagging. Otherwise, the advice is direct and the writing style is of interest in itself. So many websites that provide health advice are condescending. This one is at least instead straightforward. For example, the points about fluoride concentration are not obvious and deserve a hearing. I say at least, because they should have references and make it transparent how these conclusions were arrived at.
- OJFord 7y agoI thought it was widely known, and in a more general form - don't eat or drink for half an hour afterwards. (i.e. after breakfast, if taken.)
- jdfellow 7y agoDental advice from the Brits? I'll pass.
- Brakenshire 7y agoBritish people have healthier teeth than Americans, you’re mistaking the results of invasive and often damaging cosmetic dental procedures with the actual function and health of the teeth.
- dijit 7y agoBritish people actually have quite healthy teeth. They are, however, famously unattractive.
- signal11 7y agoModern British dentists perform orthodontic and teeth whitening treatments just as American dentists to, responding to customer demand. It’s worth noting that elective cosmetic dentistry is paid for in the UK, it’s not free — and the demand comes for straight white teeth comes from people watching films and TV. Although the NHS does provide orthodontic treatment if there is real medical need (as opposed to cosmetic). Some background: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32883893 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32883893
- dijit 7y agoThe majority of dentistry is paid in the UK. Fillings, extractions and everything that isn’t a straight clean or absolutely required (ie; fighting infections)
- pilsetnieks 7y agoBrits statistically have healthier teeth than Americans. Not whiter or straighter for those who can afford it, but healthier. https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6543 https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6543
- mdesq 7y agoThat's why my dentist recommends a fluoride mouthwash after brushing.
- avocado4 7y agoMy routine: 1. Floss 2. Waterpik (water + mouthwash) 3. Electric brush, no rinsing
- luckydata 7y agowaterpik should do the job of flossing already, you can probably skip step 1, at least according to this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24282867 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24282867
- petterparker 7y agoThe toothpaste I'm using doesn't even contain flouride. What do?
- s_T_e_v_o 7y agohttps://neurogal.com/neuro-blog/is-fluoride-toxic-to-the-brain https://neurogal.com/neuro-blog/is-fluoride-toxic-to-the-bra.... HOW DO I AVOID FLUORIDE TOXICITY? 1. AVOID FLUORIDATED WATER 2. AVOID NON-STICK COOKWARE 3. CHOOSE YOUR TEA WISELY 4. USE FLUORIDE-FREE TOOTHPASTE I hate to be a contrarian, but the latest intelligence says fluoride is a neurotoxin.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- YawningAngel 7y agoI'm sceptical of this source. The post claims fluoride in toothpaste (which isn't even ingested!) is a neurotoxin and refers to a review which I cannot find (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=lancet+fluoride+neurotoxin&btnG=&oq=lancet+flu https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=lanc... doesn't come up with much, closest I got were https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(13)70278-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4... and follow-up https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(14)70121-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4..., neither of which discuss fluoride toxicity in toothpaste). I think we should take this author's claims with a generous helping of salt. With that said, I wouldn't eat the stuff, but this post goes a lot further than that.
- SquareWheel 7y agoThis is dangerous advice. Fluoridated toothpaste is incredibly important for the health of your mouth. The source you've provided is highly suspect, and the claims contradict mountains of evidence of fluoride's safety.
- crooked-v 7y agoEnough flouride to cause long-term health issues takes at least 2 mg/liter of water (probably more) over a long period of time, while artificially fluoridated water standards are 0.7 mg/liter. Even many rivers and lakes have a natural fluoride content of 0.3 mg/liter. While there is risk from fluoridated water in some places, generally this is from unusally high natural fluoridation, from minerals leached from rock exposed by volcanic shifts or badly-regulated mining.
- f0ok 7y agoFrom "Potential fluoride toxicity from oral medicaments" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5651468/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5651468/): "The beneficial role of fluoride for the maintenance of good oral health has been known for many decades and strongly evidenced by scientific research. However, it must be emphasized that tooth decay (dental caries) is not caused by fluoride deficiency and fluoride supplementation will never reverse the active or gross carious lesions. Since the level of safety of fluoride is low, products that contain a high level of fluoride should be stored and used according to the recommendation and should be monitored by a qualified dental professional especially in children and pregnant women. In children, the swallowing reflex is not very well developed and the fluoride containing dental products are flavored hence increasing the possibility of a child to consume an excessive dose of fluoride." Maybe swallowing fluoride is not such a good idea?f (Also, can someone compare toxicity levels of lead versus fluoride?)
- crooked-v 7y agoMost toothpaste has about 1000 ppm of fluoride (0.1%), which isn't a "high level" - in fact, it means that one blob of it on a toothbrush has about the same fluoride content as a large glass of fluoridated water. "High level" in this case comes in with fluoride rinses or specialty toothpaste, which can have 5000+ or 10000+ ppm of flouride.
- latortuga 7y agoI use a toothpaste for sensitive teeth due to some recessions (due to hard brushing, don't push so hard kids!) The dentist and manufacturer of the toothpaste both recommend you don't rinse post-brush to ensure the numbing agent stays on your teeth.
- climb_stealth 7y agoI can very much recommend an electric toothbrush against brushing too hard. Depending on the model it lets you know when you push too hard. It has helped me a lot. Also, according to my dentist the receded gums don't grow back which is quite scary.
- mrsaint 7y agoOh, but you can grow it back through a gun graft, and I had it done successfully. Healthy gum tissue is removed from the roof of the mouth and uses to build the gum back up where it has receded.
- orev 7y agoAnd it is an extremely invasive and painful procedure that should be avoided at all costs if you can. And if you don’t change your habits, you’ll have to have it multiple times.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gumby 7y agoInteresting advice. Also interesting that it used inches rather than metric. Is that common?
- gwilliams 7y agoThis advice ought to be printed on every tube of toothpaste.