Whether due to a childhood accident, severe tooth decay, infection, or another dental emergency, there are many reasons why you may be missing a tooth.
The gaps left by the missing tooth can cause clients considerable distress or embarrassment. However, your dentist can close the gaps, restoring your full smile, with lifelike dental bridges.
What Are Dental Bridges?
Dental bridges are a type of false tooth that “bridges” the gap between two teeth on either side of a missing tooth.
Made of metal, ceramic, or porcelain, these tooth-lookalikes are set into your mouth with a framework that is attached to the two adjacent teeth by dental crowns.
They can help make eating, talking, and even speaking, easier. Dental bridges can be great tooth replacements, but they do require some careful maintenance and cleaning.
How to Take Care of Your Dental Bridges
Cleaning your teeth is an important part of maintaining your dental health. Proper and regular cleaning will help your teeth stay strong and healthy, which is vital to the success of your dental bridges and will help prevent more teeth from needing to be extracted.
Dentists recommend brushing twice a day for two minutes each time, as well as flossing daily and scheduling a dental cleaning appointment at least twice a year.
Yet, maintaining dental health and oral hygiene can be a bit confusing with dental bridges. That’s why we’re here to explain how to best floss with your dental bridges!
How to Floss
First, let’s start with some explanation of what flossing is.
When flossing, you use a thread of nylon or other soft plastic material to nudge bits of food and plaque out from between your teeth with a gentle back and forth motion. This scrapes the sides of your teeth to get rid of whatever food and other particles may have gotten stuck there during the day.
There are two main types of flossing instruments: flossing tape, also called stringed floss, and flossing picks. The benefit to using a pick is that it’s much easier to hold on to, making it a great tool for children and people with rheumatism or other joint pain to use. However, because of its large plastic handle, it can be more difficult to get all those hard-to-reach places in your mouth.
This is why most dentists usually recommend regular flossing tape. With flossing tape, it’s easy to maneuver the floss thread in between all your teeth without the plastic pick to get in the way.
However, with a dental bridge, it can be a challenge to thread the floss between the bridge and the adjacent teeth. That’s why many dentists recommend using a nylon floss threader to help you thread the flossing tape easily through the false tooth and the teeth on either side of it. Using brush picks, which are small soft brushes that fit in between your teeth, may be a good way to prevent plaque from building around your dental bridge.
Another option is to use a water flosser or a water pick, which, while more expensive than regular floss, can more easily clean those hard-to-reach spots in between your teeth and your dental bridge.
Get in Touch
If you want to schedule a teeth cleaning, or have any further questions about good dental care, visit Columbia River Dentistry in Portland, Oregon. Our friendly dental hygienists and other staff members can help you find the dental care you need! We offer routine checkups, cleanings, cavity fillings, and much more.
Give us a call today to schedule your first visit at (503) 255-5700!