Flossing is a crucial step in your oral hygiene regimen. At least once a day, you should use traditional string floss or another flossing tool to clean the spaces between your teeth. This clears away plaque that your toothbrush cannot reach.
While this cleaning regimen will help your teeth, it can prove advantageous to your gums as well. This connective tissue holds your teeth in place in the mouth. If you suffer gum problems, you can experience disastrous consequences for your smile, including tooth loss.
Floss each day to protect your gums in multiple ways. To encourage this good oral habit, read on to find three benefits that regular flossing will bring to your periodontal health.
Prevent Gum Irritation
Oral hygiene refers to the practice of cleaning your teeth to remove lingering food particles, plaque, and other types of build-up from your smile. This results in a fresher, healthier smile that looks and feels good. But it also ensures you can keep your gums looking and feeling their best too.
Plaque will collect and harden into tartar if it remains on your smile. Tricky spots like near the gumline often fall victim to this accumulation of build-up.
If plaque and tartar accrue in the gum pockets, they will brush against the sensitive tissue. This can make the gums red, sore, tender, and swollen. They can feel uncomfortable while also looking puffy, disrupting the appearance of your smile.
When you remove plaque in a timely fashion with thorough oral hygiene, you can prevent this irritating build-up. Then your gums will not bother you. So do not skip flossing.
Fight Oral Infections
Plaque build-up on your smile will allow oral bacteria to breed and spread throughout your mouth. If you do not floss, then bacteria can travel easily to the gums. This heightens your risk of gum disease, an oral infection affecting the gum tissue.
If you contract gum disease, it will not go away of its own accord. You will need a dentist to get rid of the infection. Otherwise, bacteria will continue to eat away at the gums and cause serious and irreversible dental damage.
To avoid this extra dental work, prioritize preventive care for gum health. This means reducing your chances of contracting gum disease by keeping your smile as clean as possible with proper flossing and oral hygiene.
Identify Signs of Gum Disease
Flossing can work toward preventing gum disease, but the practice may also help you diagnose it in its early stages. Patients with gingivitis, the initial phase of gum disease, can experience bleeding, pain, swelling, and inflammation in the gum tissue. But sometimes, these effects seem somewhat subtle.
The act of flossing can reveal these symptoms of infection in the gums. If you see bleeding while you floss, this is not normal. Sometimes, patients who return to flossing after skipping the practice can see some bleeding. But the issue should go away after a few days of continuous good flossing.
If bleeding in the gums persists during flossing, despite the removal of prior build-up between the teeth, then you might have gum disease. Gum disease is easier to treat in its early phase, so do not delay contacting your dentist if you notice symptoms in your gums.