What's your cleaning routine???

[wating4braces]

OK i get it! Let the stupid critisizm thing go!

by the way, its not like im racist, i don't see how healthily critisizing someones brushing routine would seriously affect them. Critisize my routine all you want, its not perfect. i honestly don't care.

[payoki]

I just simply brush my teeth in the morning and in the afternoon only before bed time do I floss and use the skinny brush and rinse, I'm too tired and don't have time to brush and brush I have a 7 month old baby and a 3 year old

[nml55]

One more answer to your question:
Wake up - quick brush to get rid of muck mouth.
After Breakfast - Brush with Oral B electric toothbrush, use small brush to get under arch wires, floss, inspect, use dental pick to remove
calculus or tarter (have not noticed any in a long time), and rinse with Listerene.
After Lunch - Brush with travel brush, use small brush to get under arch wires, rinse with water, inspect. (Done in public washrooms in restaurants or at work-always)
After Snack - Same as after Lunch.
After Dinner - Same as after Breakfast.

My hygienist at my dentist's office, as well as my ortho are very happy with my home care. The ortho, almost without fail, tells me I have excellent home care every visit.

My after Breakfast and Dinner routines take about 15 minutes each. My after Lunch and Snack routines take about 3 minutes each.

Good luck to you with your routine. Do what ever you feel you need to do.
Don't let anyone embarrass you or put you down for it.

[TimSeattle]

Some folks do seem to get cavities and other dental problems regardless of good hygiene and others can do next to nothing and have no cavities or dental problems. My take is that those whose hygiene does not follow current dental recommendations that includes flossing daily are playing Russian roulette with their teeth. It's like some who can drink to excess, smoke and have a lousy diet, and live to 100. Others can end up candidates for a quadruple heart bypass simply by inhaling second-hand hamburger fumes.

My cleaning routine:

Getting up: Rinse with water, brush with a regular toothbrush.

Brush with a manual toothbrush after every meal (I carry my Dentakit, purchased here, around for brushing and rinsing when I am away from home--it has been a real help since I bought it a year and a half ago). Rinse, use plastic toothpick to get any residual food from between teeth. Re-rinse.

Before bed: Rinse with anti-plaque solution for one minute; brush with Sonicare for 2 minutes; floss with Oral B Superfloss; rinse for one minute with Oral B fluoride rinse.

[cookie]

This board is meant to bring people together and critisizing someone on their routine is immature and rude. Her original question was "what is your routine" not "what do you think of mine."

I don't want to keep bringing this back up - but these are public boards - just because there is a good sense of community doesn't mean that we can't have opinions on other peoples' routines.

IMO Lucy seems to realise here routine is completely over the top - this is evident in the manner in which she presented it in here original post.

I don't care if I'm being seen as nasty for criticising someone's routine - but a 1.5 hour each time oral care routine is not normal. And it doesn't seem to be doing Lucy any good either.

I suppose I'm just curious to know what everyone else's cleaning routine is.... Am I over-doing it, or missing something out?!

Oh and Jenns - she did also ask if people thought she was overdoing it. SO this was her original question. I addressed this in the manner I saw fit.

Yes you have to make change to your routines when you have braces, but the fact that you have braces is a peripheral part of you - you still need to get on with your day to day life - to eat and to enjoy yourself. Letting them take over your life in such a way that you spend hours on cleaning them for me borders on OCD.

[wating4braces]

jenns91civic wrote:
This board is meant to bring people together and critisizing someone on their routine is immature and rude. Her original question was "what is your routine" not "what do you think of mine."



I don't want to keep bringing this back up - but these are public boards - just because there is a good sense of community doesn't mean that we can't have opinions on other peoples' routines.

IMO Lucy seems to realise here routine is completely over the top - this is evident in the manner in which she presented it in here original post.

I don't care if I'm being seen as nasty for criticising someone's routine - but a 1.5 hour each time oral care routine is not normal. And it doesn't seem to be doing Lucy any good either.

Lucyeloop wrote:

I suppose I'm just curious to know what everyone else's cleaning routine is.... Am I over-doing it, or missing something out?!



Oh and Jenns - she did also ask if people thought she was overdoing it. SO this was her original question. I addressed this in the manner I saw fit.

Yes you have to make change to your routines when you have braces, but the fact that you have braces is a peripheral part of you - you still need to get on with your day to day life - to eat and to enjoy yourself. Letting them take over your life in such a way that you spend hours on cleaning them for me borders on OCD.

Oh, I could just HUG you!!!

[sparklecopy]

My Routine:

Morning:
1. Get out of bed, rinse mouth, eat breakfast
2. Oral B pulsar no toothpaste for ten seconds
3. oral B pulsar w/ Colgate whitening and baking soda peroxide 2 minutes
4. Rinse w/ Listerine

Time: ~ 2 and a half minutes

Afternoon and after meals:
1. Brush w/ portable toothbrush no toothpaste
2. rinse w/ water
3. drink lots of water during day

Time: ~5 minutes

Nighttime:
1. Take out worn elastics
2. Oral-B pulsar w/ Colgate Total 2 minutes
3. Use interdental or the clean between oral pick
4. Floss every 3 days (oral b superfloss
5. Gargle w Biotene mouthwash occasionally
6. Use Sonicare elite all over brackets 2 minutes (this is really important cause I loosely use the edge of the sonicare on the brackets like a dremel so that it causes spittle to fly all over the mirror, that means you are using the sonicare correctly)
7. rinse and put on new elastics
8. Use 1 paper towel to Dry my face
8. use windex on mirror, sink, and handle of sonicare.
9. Use same paper towel to dry mirror, sink, and sonicare

Time: ~5 minutes w/o floss, ~12 w/ floss
DONE Total Daily time: ~12-25 minutes

[ricardo2]

I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU again to EVERYONE who has taken the trouble to reply to my post. It's made interesting reading!! LOL!

I suppose I just wanted to say that I hope that everyone's input will maybe help other people in future decide on a routine that's right for them.

Also, further to what I've wrote in some of my other posts on the forums, (which I perhaps didn't make very clear on this one) - I just wanted to reiterate the main reason why I need to clean so much... which is due to the decay/erosion which occured unexpectedly 2 years ago, (prior to my braces) and was caused by diuretic medication for health probs, and also acid reflux. I wouldn't expect anyone on this planet to clean as much as I need to, unless they've got similar problems.

If anyone ever happens to read this who has started to experience sudden, unexplained decay and erosion, despite an excessive cleaning routine/oral hygeine, then PLEASE check what medications you are taking, and see your doctor as to whether acid reflux may be occurring. It took the doctors several months to conclusively detect the cause in me, so I just don't want this to ever happen to anyone else.

If this helps somebody who might read this in weeks, months or even years time, then I hope it's been worth it.

Thanks again!

LUCY xxx

[starrynight]

I am new at this since I have only had braces five weeks (first adjustment is tomorrow!) but this is what works for me so far...

Morning:
Brush with Oral B Advantage Manual brush or my Sonicare with Squiggle Enamel Saver Toothpaste (mint burns my mouth so I love this stuff! Also supposed to be good if you get cancer sores a lot) Rinse with Act mouthwash.

After lunch:
Brush at work with my travel brush and a sample size Crest toothpaste (I need to bring the Squiggle to work, this stuff burns).

After snacks:
I am hypoglycemic so I have to eat a lot. For the times I need a snack but can't brush I chew Trident gum with xylitol (sugar that is good for your teeth). My ortho said I can chew sugarless gum and my hygenist said this one was a good idea.

Before bed/after dinner
Same as morning but I use a prescription fluoride toothpaste (berry flavor, actually good) and finish up by flossing with a Flosspopper.

I started having some thin enamel problems between my teeth, probably due to crowding, not drinking tap water the last two years (water tastes so bad, but has fluoride) and having to snack so much. With this routine I don't have any senstivity anymore, even with braces.

Flosspoppers Note (special floss holders that can slip under archwire):
Flossing with braces has been a joy since I discovered Flosspoppers. Superfloss shreaded between my teeth (ouch!) and I had a ligature under a lot of stress that come off while using threaders (and I poked myself in the gums a lot). I was desperate! An Google search for a better answer surfaced Flosspoppers. My ortho didn't have them but I tracked down some. I can floss in five minutes and I don't feel like I am going to break anything. My ortho's office said they plan to order some, and tomorrow I can show them how great they work!

[griffin33]

starrynight wrote: << I chew Trident gum with xylitol (sugar that is good for your teeth). My ortho said I can chew sugarless gum and my hygenist said this one was a good idea. >>

Xylitol is great to use when you have braces since it can help prevent cavities but I think the gum can get a little messy. I like xylitol mints since they work as well and are a lot less messy on the hardware!

The brand I get is called Zellies (Zellies dot com) which taste pretty darn good.

[tokidoki]

morning: brush with generic toothpaste and orthodontic V-brush/interproximal cleaner. rinse with soft mint mouthwash (it's such a pretty color). I'd like to get some PhosFlur though, flouridosis is the worst.

afternoon: if a particularly messy lunch, brush with no toothpaste (travel v-brush/interproximal cleaner) xylitol gum (that stuff is good, but I'm starting to get sick of it)

evening: same as morning, but sometimes with flossing in between. I don't use orthodontic threaders, just get all up on the mirror and thread it by hand.

[Megera_S]

Days I work:
I brush 2-3 minutes before going to work (I work at 3pm-11pm and because of that I'm not normally up early enough for breakfast/lunch or to go anywhere before work)...
After we eat dinner at work I brush. I'll occasionally brush after we have a snack at work - depends on how my mouth is feeling. And then I brush before I go to bed (all of the brushing is usually 2-3 minutes).
If I don't brush after I eat I'll have a quick look to make sure I don't have food sticking in my brackets somewhere.

Days I don't work:
Basically the same thing. I'll brush between 3 and 5 times a day depending on what I eat and if I'm actually leaving the house.

And I floss a couple of times a week. I do floss between a couple teeth more though because they have a bigger gap that food gets caught in.


As for brushing times: I heard that over brushing is just as much of a problem as under brushing. You could be irritating your gums more and you could be damaging your enamel if you're really going at it. Isn't there a point where you could brush for say 4 minutes or 20 minutes and your mouth wouldn't be any cleaner? Just like trying to clean a window. You could stand there and wipe it for an hour when just wiping it for 10 minutes does the same job?

[metalmouth moi]

My routine
am Brush, sometimes manual, sometimes oral B with ortho head2-3 min
water pik, feels great
listerine

Lunch- Manual brush, proxa brush, listerine

Supper- A quick brush
Bed- Oral B, waterpik, listerine, floss. LOVE the Crest glide floss !!! Bought boxes last time we were shopping in the States (can't seem to find them here in our neck of the woods )
The Denta Kit is wonderful. Take it everywhere and sure has come in handy. Thanks Lynn !
Moi

[Lucifina]

Oh man, I admit it I hate flossing but I will have to be diligent once I get the braces. I had a cavity once on the side of my tooth due to not flossing! Not cool, the dentist had to jam a wood splint thing in there just to get to it At my last cleaning I had no cavities and was lectured on the flossing and brushing for 3 mins! So I stare at the clock for three mins and brush. W/braces I have a feeling I will not get the hit the snooze button so many times though
And from on Luci to another Lucy if you want to skip a meal to avoid hassle I don't blame you one bit! My little sister also had many a filling due to decay caused by medication she was lucky enough that is was when she was a child though so it was all in her baby teeth but it happens and I don't think you are OCD...I for one will not eat during the day while I am working because I will not be brushing my teeth in the restrooms at work. Mouthwash maybe but no one should have to look at my dental hygiene routine.

[cinnabunny91]

Morning

wake up , take shower
brush teeth for about 3 minutes , floss most of my teeth if their not too soar
use that skinny tooth brush under the metal wire
rinse with water

Evening
if im not busy with homework or anything like that i usually atleast brush them in the evening (3 minutes)

Night
Brush teeth(lol again 3 minutes) ,rinse with mouthwash,use that skinny toothbrush again.. anyways WOW you are like.. superb at your routine... i feel really like im neglecting my teeth now haha

oh and i use the oral b battery toothbrush.. it does a pretty good job..