While many people put pressure against the gums to get debris, they don't use pressure when running the floss against the tooth. However, you want to add gentle pressure to “scrape” the floss against the tooth, removing plaque that has collected between the teeth.
While flossing, you will want to gently move the floss around each tooth and should not touch the gums. Moving the floss in the opposite direction of the gum line can help decrease the risk hitting the gums while you floss.
You ought to do this delicately as opposed to being excessively forceful, or you'll end up with bleeding or harming your gums. After you slide the floss between your teeth, you should bend it around the tooth and let it plunge beneath the gum line (in a perfect world, it should plunge around 2 – 3 millimeters down).
Benefits of flossing:
Helps remove food particles and plaque between teeth and along the gum line where your toothbrush can't quite reach. Better removal of bad breath-causing bacteria than brushing alone.
Your Gums Shouldn't Bleed When You Floss
Other than seeing a little blood initially if it's been a while, proper technique is designed to remove plaque from the sides of teeth and not to torture the gum tissue! It should be a gentle motion moving it up and down along the sides of each tooth.
The biggest mistake most people make when flossing is to “snap” it up and down between their teeth. This aggressive method can actually harm the gums, rather than help them. What's better, is to wrap the floss snuggly around the tooth in a “C” shape.
Flossing Can Cause Gum Recession – When trying to pull the floss through the spaces between the teeth, some people may pull too hard causing the floss to violently pull on the gum tissue. This may allow the floss to go beneath the gum line, causing bleeding, gum recession, and even gum disease.
Your gums show the truth when it comes to flossing. If they begin to bleed or become swollen once your dentist starts flossing, they'll know immediately that it has been a while since the last time you've flossed. Many dental patients only floss in the days leading up to their cleaning appointment.
As long as you have not lost all your teeth, it is never too late to start flossing.
This can seem scary at first but don't worry. In most cases, the small, tooth-like yellow chunk is nothing more than tartar that broke off your tooth while flossing. To find out why this happens and what you should do after, keep on reading this blog.
If you notice that your gums are receding, talk to your periodontist. The first thing you should do is make sure you are brushing and flossing well. This can keep the gums from receding further. To fully restore your smile and oral health, you may need surgery and other intervention.
Smacking the Floss Against the Gums
Just like flossing too much can be harmful to your gums, so can allowing the floss to smack your gums. Even though you are supposed to floss along the gum line, the floss should never actually hit the gums at a perpendicular angle.
Floss can get stuck for one of many reasons, such as: Your teeth are too close together. You have plaque built up in between your teeth that's trapping the floss. You have a restoration like a crown or filling that has started to break down and make the surfaces between your teeth uneven.
Gently shimmy the floss down as far as it will go below the gum, rubbing the teeth with the floss. The white stuff that you find on the floss, is a colony of bacteria you have just disrupted. As soon as you're done, they'll start their process of rebuilding. That's why daily is important.
Dentists probably aren't even aware of whether patients have their eyes open or closed, or if they have one eye open and one eye closed. All that really matters is that dentists keep their eyes open. And get a good night's sleep before using that drill.
If you're starting a new flossing routine, Rawdin says it can take a week or so for your gums to settle down and potentially stop bleeding. If you're dealing with gingivitis, individual prognosises vary, so it's best to talk with your dentist first.
Food, plaque, and debris are all smaller and more malleable than floss, and even those with tightly-packed teeth should floss their teeth at least once per day.
Some people floss with too much pressure, which can cause pain and bleeding along the gum line. Pain after flossing is also a sign that you're not flossing often enough. Be sure to floss every day in order to limit your pain. Of course, some people have great oral hygiene and still deal with pain after flossing.
But we have to say it, don't drag floss with force over food particles stuck in your teeth. We know it can be tempting to just rip that floss through when the pieces are really lodged in there but you can do more damage by tugging too hard and lodging the food even further down below the gum line.
There are two sides to each space between your teeth and you must floss each side separately so as not to injure the triangle of gum tissue between your teeth. Run the floss up and down the surface of the tooth, making sure you are going down to the gum line and then up to the highest contact point between the teeth.
When you floss your teeth, it will appear white on the floss. The most dangerous part of plaque is that since it's colorless, many people don't care to remove it as much. However, plaque will make your teeth feel fuzzy, cause cavities, and bad breath if it's not removed.
With regular flossing, brushing, and dental checkups, you can get rid of the symptoms of gingivitis. But you have to be doing it for at least two weeks for all the signs to disappear. And if you floss every day for two weeks in a row, just keep doing it! It's become part of your daily routine at that point.