Infographic Category Health

A Lifetime of Brushing

By | source: Oct 6th, 2014

The dentist seems to give me bad news every time I go in to see him. For instance, when I went to the dentist around May for a standard teeth cleaning, he told me I needed to get my bottom two wisdom teeth removed. He assured me that on a scale of 1-10, my extractions would be a 2, since they weren’t impacted or anything. Easy peasy, I thought to myself. Naturally, I was wrong; it turned out I needed three teeth removed. Obviously, eating was a little difficult after that, but nothing significantly bad happened. I was still mad about the third tooth, though. A little warning would have been nice.

I don’t hold it against the dentist for giving me bad news. I suppose he’s only trying to help. I do get tired of the look he gives me when he tells me I’ve got a cavity, or warns me that I’ll soon get one if I’m not careful. And it’s not like I don’t take care of my teeth. (Alright, I could probably take better care of them.)

I must confess I’m not a fan of flossing, but apparently, neither is the average American. Which is bad, because according to this infographic, you miss cleaning 40 percent of the tooth surface when you don’t floss… Gross! It also turns out the average person doesn’t brush long enough. Dentists recommend brushing two minutes in the morning and two minutes at night.

If you’re not convinced flossing is important yet, scroll to the bottom of the infographic to read why brushing and flossing is so beneficial. Now go brush your teeth!

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