Health Tips

When I started juggling, I did not just start tossing things up in the air and hope that things turned out alright. Instead, I learned tips on the best way to do it in order to keep from missing one.

All of life is a balancing act between good and bad, disease happens when the seesaw is tilted more in the bad direction than the good direction.  Everyday you and your body are fighting a battle and the key to winning is to let the good outweigh the bad.

Here are some tips to help you add to your good.

• Why Brush and Floss?
• How 2 Brush
• How 2 Floss
• Why rinse?
• How 2 Rinse
• Do I need sealants?
• What to eat
• What not to eat
• What to do if a tooth gets knocked out
• Why do I have two sets of teeth?
• When do teeth come in?
• What if I grind my teeth?
• What do smoking and tobacco do to my teeth?
• What is a cavity?

Why Brush and Floss?

     Every one has a layer of plaque bacteria on their teeth. These are the bad bugs. If they grab on to your tooth and you don't try to move them by brushing them away, they will set up a nice camp in that spot. Maybe it will help you to think of it like this, picture these little cavity bugs holding on to your teeth. Then picture yourself coming up to them with your toothbrush which you use to wiggle back and forth under their little arms and tickle them until they can't hold on anymore and fall away from the tooth. This is not exactly how it works, but hopefully it will help you get the picture of why it is important to brush. Often the bad cavity bugs don't really leave your mouth, you just move them around so they will not be able to settle in and build a neighborhood on one of your teeth or under your gums; that is why it is so important to brush and floss a couple of times every day. The other reason that it is important to brush is that these plaque bacteria/cavity bugs enjoy eating your leftover food if you leave it around after your meals, especially your sugary snacks, because they love to eat and get energy from carbohydrates like sugar. So, you need to make sure to clean up after you eat by brushing or flossing away any extra food, because if you don't the cavity bugs will have a picnic with your leftovers. Then after they use it for energy, they will give off an acid waste product with the part they do not use for energy. You could say that if you don’t clean up after you eat, you will let the cavity bugs go to the bathroom in your mouth. This cavity bug waste is an acid that can eat away at the hard surface of your tooth until it makes a hole and begins to give you a toothache.

How 2 Brush:

1. Put your brush halfway on your tooth and halfway on your gums (the pink stuff around your teeth).
2. Tilt the brush outward at a 45 degree angle so that the tips of your brush can go just under the edge of your gums.  (Imagine trying to use a broom to clean some crumbs out from under the very edge of a rug.  If you just move the broom back and forth on the rug or the floor, you would not get to the crumbs.  But if you tilt the broom a little, and let the edge of the broom bristles slide partly under the rug, you can scoot the crumbs out from under the rug and to the floor where you can get to them easier.)
3. Wiggle the toothbrush softly back and forth.  (This is the part where you gently tickle the cavity bugs.)  DO NOT PUSH THE TOOTHBRUSH BACK AND FORTH TOO HARD, because you can hurt the tooth and gums.  When you tickle someone, it makes them laugh and squirm when it is gentle, but if you do it too hard, it just hurts.
4. Also brush back and forth on the top part of each tooth.
5. When you get to the inside part of the front teeth, you will need to turn you brush straight up and down and behind those teeth.
6. Your mouth can be divided into 4 parts: top right, top left, bottom right, and bottom left. You should try to spend 30 seconds in each of the four parts.  So, it should take you 2 minutes to brush your whole mouth.  To help you keep time you can sing a song in your head, say a Bible verse over and over, or click here to get a Dr. Juggles’ Brushing Timer and Electric Toothbrush.
7. After brushing your teeth, make sure that you stick your tongue out and brush your tongue, especially at the back.  Stick it out far so you don’t poke your brush down your throat.

Note:  MOST OF THE BUGS (micro-organisms) THAT CAUSE BAD BREATH ARE FOUND ON YOUR TONGUE. You can also purchase a tongue scraper to help you get these bugs off your tongue.

Reminder:  You should replace your toothbrush at least every 3 months or when the bristles start to spread out and lay down.  Whichever comes first.  A lazy brush will not clean as well as a brush that is at attention.

How 2 Floss:

1. The floss goes where your tooth brush cannot; so, don’t think that you can skip floss if you brush.  You need to do both.
2. Grab about a foot and a half(18 inches) of floss.  It doesn’t cost much, so don’t be worried that you are going to waste it.  It is best to use a lot of floss so that you can use a new section for each tooth.  You wouldn’t want to tie up the cavity bugs from one place and move them to the next place by using the same section of floss. 
3. Wrap the floss around a finger on each hand.
4. Push floss between all teeth, making sure to go just below the gum to the little pocket between the teeth, similar to a C shape around the tooth. This is where your brush bristles have trouble reaching.
5. Then pull the floss back and forth and up and down like you are shoe-shining the tooth.

Remember: You are not just removing food but also cavity bugs that the toothbrush cannot get to; so, just because you don’t feel like you have food caught between your teeth, does not mean that you do not need to floss.

Why Rinse?

     Many mouthrinses are antiseptic and have medicines that can help kill cavity bugs.  Sometimes, when used along with brushing and flossing, they can help get rid of a few more plaque bacteria that the brush and floss missed.  All of these things need to work together and not take the place of one of the others.

    Other mouthrinses have fluoride supplements which help make developing teeth stronger.  These rinses are important to children that live in areas without a fluoridated water system.

How 2 Rinse:

1. Children under 6 years old should probably not use mouthrinses because they contain ingredients that could be very harmful if swallowed.  Children over 6 years old should also use mouthrinses with adult supervision to insure that they do not swallow the rinse.
2. To rinse properly, place a small portion in mouth and swish it around for about 30 seconds to make sure that it gets between all teeth and to all parts of the mouth. 
3. Once finished swishing, DO NOT SWALLOW.  Spit out in the sink and then rinse and spit with water.

Do I need sealants?

     Many teeth, especially your back teeth, have very large grooves or pits in them.  These pits are often deep and skinny making it impossible for your toothbrush or dental floss to get in and clean them.  You can also imagine that these deep narrow pits are a great place for plaque bacteria/cavity bugs to hide.

     So, a sealant is a type of flowable plastic that can be placed in the grooves of these teeth to keep the bad bugs out by filling in the pit.  Once the sealant is on your tooth, the dentist will shine a very bright light on it to make it hard like your tooth so you can chew on it.

     Ask your dentists if he/she thinks you should have sealants, especially when your permanent teeth like your 6 year molars starts to come in.

What To Eat

     Make sure that you eat a balanced diet.  Include fibrous foods and fruit as well which not only are healthy but can also increase saliva(spit) produced in your mouth and perform a natural cleansing action.

Minimal recommended intake of the nutrient-rich four food groups

• 4 servings - fruits and vegetables
• 4 servings - breads and cereals
• 3 servings – milk (harder cheeses)Cheese with meal will keep pH higher so won’t dip below crucial level on Stephan Curve(pH5.5) [Stephan Curve is a name given to a level at which there is too much acid in your mouth making it much easier for the plaque bacteria to attack.]
• 2 servings – animal or vegetable protein  

Don’t snack constantly between meals. When snacking, snack on healthy foods.

What not to eat?

     Do not eat many sugary foods like candies and mints that stay in your mouth a long time and have more time to attack your teeth. 

     If you do drink a sugary drink like a coke, drink it all at once.  Sipping on it over a long time will keep your Stephan Curve low for a long time and give the cavity bugs more time to attack.

What to do if a tooth gets knocked out?

1. If a tooth gets knocked out, you should quickly pick it back up.
2. Be very careful about cleaning it off, because the tooth will probably have part of the periodontal ligament on it.  The periodontal ligament helps hold the tooth in its socket, but it also has very important repair cells that can help form new bone and new cementum (goes around the root to help it connect to the ligament).  If you scrape all of this off, it will make repair of the tooth very difficult.
3. You need to immediately store the tooth in a medium to preserve it. 
4. One good thing to put it in is milk. 
5. But if you do not have milk, you can put it in your mouth (just be careful not to swallow it). Water is the worst thing you could use to store the tooth (water is a hypotonic solution that will kill the important repair cells mentioned above).
6. Get to your dentist as quickly as possible so that he/she can professionally replant it and stabilize it.  The faster you get there, the more chance you have to save it.

Why do I have two sets of teeth?

     Some animals have only one set of teeth.  Others like sharks have a continuous set of teeth that always replaces itself throughout life (Polyphyodonts).  However, most mammals like ourselves have two sets of teeth (Diphyodonts). 

     Most people have their first set of 20 primary teeth (also called baby teeth, deciduous teeth, or milk teeth) by the age of two.  Infant jaws are too small to hold the 32 permanent teeth, so these 20 baby teeth are needed until the jaw grows to its mature size.

When do teeth come in?

What if I grind my teeth?

     Grinding your teeth together whether when nervous, mad, or sleeping is called bruxism.  Bruxism can be bad for your teeth, because it can wear them down.  Ask your dentist if he/she thinks that you should wear a mouthguard or appliance to protect your teeth.

What do smoking and tobacco do to my teeth?

     Not only do smoking and tobacco cause stains on your teeth.  They can also lead to gum disease, cancer, and other problems with your teeth and gums.

     If you or someone you care about needs information on how to stop using tobacco, contact the ACT Center.  The ACT center is A Comprehensive Tobacco center that can help you or someone you care about stop using and avoid the dangers of tobacco.  You could even be the one to help your parents stop.  Tell them that you love them too much to lose them and you heard about a place that could help them. Click here for information on the ACT Center.

What is a cavity?

     A cavity is defined as a hole or a void of nothing where there once was something.  What most people call a cavity is the hole that results when the plaque bacteria’s acid waste product takes away tooth structure.  This happens when you feed (especially sugar to) the plaque bacteria and do not escort them off your tooth with a brush or floss.  So, it happens when you let the bad outweigh the good, and disease wins.

Click here to view a brochure on how to “Keep Your Mouth Clean/Keep Your Life Clean.”  This brochure is perfect for personal use, for class use if you are a teacher, or for new patient packets if you are a dentist.  To order a bundle of 25 brochures, please click here.