It can be easy to overlook one very important part of your oral health care routine: taking care of your tongue! It has 10,000 taste buds, and each taste bud has 50 to 150 taste receptors that allow you to enjoy your food (wow, that's a LOT). Yet, your tongue also holds quite a bit of the bacteria that lives in your mouth. In fact, it's why we use masks during the current pandemic.
We all have a tendency to breathe through our mouth - in fact, we use masks to shield others from whatever it is that comes out. Although there are some animals that ONLY breathe through their nose - like your dog - we're not one of them. Everything that exits your mouth has to pass by your tongue - and that’s why tongue health is so important. There are two methods that produce the best results: regularly brushing and using a tongue scraper.
Think of your tongue as a bed of soil - in that soil, there are rocks. You can aerate the soil by raking it (brushing) yet the rocks are still there. So how do you get rid of the rocks? Using a tongue scraper - this will remove the excess mucus layer and bacteria growing on your tongue. Believe it or not, it's been proven that from proper tongue brushing and scraping, you are less likely to suffer from lung colds, coughs, and other respiratory issues.
In addition to ensuring your tongue's health, keep in mind that brushing your teeth works well only if you hold your toothbrush properly. How do you do that, you might ask? Easy! Hold the toothbrush where the bristles are parallel to your tooth, turn the handle of the brush so that the bristles are slightly bent against your teeth, and then agitate the brush to remove the plaque.
Did you know that brushing at least once a day keeps plaque from accumulating? Plaque sitting in the mouth for 24 hours becomes calcified and once that happens, your brush doesn't have a chance at removing it.
Oh, wait! We saved the best step for last - flossing! It’s important to clean not only the exterior edges of your teeth, but in between as well. Although waxed floss helps you learn proper technique, the best type of floss is un-waxed. Using your thumbs and forefingers, holding the floss, create a snow angel pattern around each tooth. Floss cleans more of the structure of the tooth than your brush AND it has the ability to clean the entire vertical surface area.
Keep your tongue fresh, your teeth brushed, and try to squeeze a flossing session in every now and then - it takes more than an apple a day to keep the dentist away.
Dr. Bernie Kahn, d.d.s.
Dr. Kahn was born and raised in Orlando. He attended Edgewater High School, FSU, and then on to Emory.
Dr. Kahn enjoys representing dentistry to politicians and is an active member of the American Dental Association, Florida Dental Association, Central Florida Dental Association, and the Dental Society of Orlando.
He has three sons and nine granddaughters - there will be quite a few weddings in his future!
