No Stupid Questions

If you are truly struggling and need actual dental care, try searching for a local dental school near you. Many will take patients for cheap or free, with the caveat that a dental student will be performing the treatment.

Otherwise, brush at least twice a day and floss. Do not re-use strands of floss, like with those convenient plastic picks. You'll just be transferring bacteria to each crevice after it's been used.

Get a water pick (whatever it's called) - I heard those are great but I don't have one myself.

My yearly dental works always cost a fortune, but my teeth are great now, since:

• I got an electric brush and floss sticks;
• I now drink coffee without sugar (you'll get used to it pretty quickly);
• I almost completely stopped drinking sugary drinks (mostly bubbly water now, boycotting evil companies and being poor help).

Brush, floss and mouthwash. Stay clear of gum and soda.

Waterflossers are better than nothing. Best is floss to get the stuff wedged at the contact, then interdental brushes to get the stuff under the contact - these must be snug, otherwise you're not effectively using them.

Soft and small toothbrush, preferably an electric with a pressure sensor. The counter oscillating Crest/Oral B type is probably the most affordable. Don't need to get the top model. Some only time 2 minutes instead of 30s, so I'd recommend counting to 30 seconds (properly! Not rushing!) and do a quarter of your mouth at a time. Point at the gumline a little when you brush, approximately 45 degrees. You must push your lips and tongue out of the way. Do an extra minute after you're done with 2 minutes. Do this at least twice daily, consider a third time during the day, and you must not skip the one just before you sleep. Do not consume anything but water after this and prior to sleep. Do not get a midnight snack.

Use neutrafluor/prevident 5000 toothpaste, or clinpro 5000. Extra fluoride means extra protection from acid challenges. Use neutrafluor mouthwash if you must use a m/w during the day. Do not rinse the paste off your teeth.

Eliminate where possible from your diet anything sour, tart, or fizzy. That includes soda water and citrus and ACV. Eliminate where possible sweet things, including fruit - especially dried fruit.

Rinse with plain water after eating and drinking.

Common triggers of heartburn are foods that may be fried, fatty, and or spicy. Some people are triggered by dairy or lactose, or eating too late before lying down.

Treat your heartburn by prevention, not relievers. If you experience any symptom relating to heartburn, rinse thoroughly with plain water. Do this too if you vomit for any reason.

If you have dry mouth, try Xylimelts or the new range Freshmelts (this doesn't seem toxic to dogs). You can wear these during your sleep. Also treat the origin of your dry mouth.

...I'm sure I have other tips... But these are the most common ones I make to my patients.

What with the multiple recommendations for a water pick in the comments, lemme drop some aggregated info I've gathered about them after asking multiple dentists and hygienists over the last few years while sitting around waiting for various things.

They're great for what they are, but they aren't as great as people think they are.

They do definitely work, no doubts, every single one that I talked about them with said that they'll get the job done.

The problem is that they have a higher learning curve than you'd think, and that means they can cause more trouble than they fix.

See, you're using the water pressure at an angle because of how you have to hold the pick and move it. The angle that you'll likely use them at is the wrong one, and this means you are probably going to be shooting the plaque and debris the pick dislodges under your gums.

Obviously, that is not a good thing.

You can definitely learn how to avoid doing that with a bit of research, but most people don't do that bare minimum research, they just start spraying and then wonder why their gums are bleeding and sore.

So, if you want to invest in a water pick (and tbh, saving the money to pay for a yearly cleaning would be better), make sure you take the time to use it properly. But, they aren't better than floss at all, so unless you have some reason you can't floss, why spend the money?

Brush, floss, no sugar

Brush and floss

The same as you do if you can afford dental care:

Most importantly: Brush at least once, better twice a day. No exceptions ever. Make it part of your daily morning or evening rituals. It takes about a day for plaque to harden and then you can no longer brush it away. Don’t ever let it get to that.

If you can afford one, get an electric toothbrush.

Be gentle with the brush. All you need is a very soft scrubbing. Pressure can damage your teeth and gums.

Chewing gum can reduce acids and help remineralize your enamel after eating. Sugar free is better, but afaik even gum with sugar has a net positive effect if you chew it long enough after the sugar has dissolved.

Try to avoid getting into a routine that leaves out spots when brushing. Personally, I switch hands every day and once or twice a week I use a non-electric brush.

If you want to optimize this: those tablets that the dentist uses to stain plaque to check where you missed a spot are cheap, you don’t necessarily need a dentist for that if you can’t afford one.

Floss and use interdental brushes regularly. Use mouthwash every now and then, and at the first sign of gum inflammation. Preferably one without alcohol, because that seems to increase the risk of cancer.

If you can’t afford professional tooth cleaning, try asking for calculus removal, if you have any. Here in Germany that’s ~15€ instead of ~100€. Once it’s gone prevent it from building up again (see above).

If you have cavities, try to get rid of them as early as possible. Maybe there are some charity or teaching clinics. Cavities only ever get more expensive in the long run. And it is much easier to maintain an infection free mouth than to constantly fight to keep the decay from spreading.

Get a Sonicare toothbrush

One super easy thing to help a little is swish some water in your mouth after you east/drink. If you're gonna drink something sugary or acidic, do it quickly, don't sip it.

Cut out soft-drinks in general.

They are not only packed full of sugar, but some very popular ones contain phosphoric acid. If you had to invent an combination of edible ingredients designed to damage tooth enamel, you couldn't do worse. The fact that this is a diet-friendly option is almost a side-benefit. It's that bad.

Brush and floss just like your dentist tells you. Also use a real mouthwash, like Listerine.

Watch YouTube videos on how to brush and floss.

I am absolutely taking the L here since I've apparently been brushing my teeth wrong for most of my life.

I'll never get flossing right so water picking has been the next best thing.

I currently spend a 1-2k a year at the dentist, which imo, isn't that bad. But probably way less had I learned proper brushing and had better flossing habits.

Flossing and brushing like everyone said, but toothpaste matters I used to swear by the Sensidine with "Novamin" (Calcium sodium phosphosilicate), from what I understand it can actually repair minor damage (e.g. prevent a soft spot from becoming a cavity). Sadly last I checked there was some patient in the US preventing it from being sold here. I brought back a decent bit when I moved back from the UK, but its all gone now. Amazon.co.uk or Boots.co.uk may ship it (but then it becomes legally questionable, I don't know how close stuff like that is watched for at customs).

A toothpaste that restores your enamel. It’s prescription in the US but you can get Apagard Premio off Amazon.

It’s probably a good idea to get some extra fluoride since the Apagard doesn’t have any. I use purple Listerine, but I kinda hate it, so find something you like.

You should floss, which I’m shitty at, so I use a water pick a few times a week. All kinds of nasty crap comes out, even after brushing, so it’s gotta be better than nothing.

I use a Philips Sonicare toothbrush, no need to get the fancy ones, it’s mostly extra accessories. There are probably less expensive ultrasonic toothbrushes out there that work well… doing it twice a day manually is probably better for you than once a day with a fancy toothbrush.

Hang in there, clinical trials of a drug that regrows teeth are underway and the results are promising.

Disclaimer: I'm a psych nurse not a dental professional, but I'm commenting because my patients are a high-risk demographic for dental disease for a bunch of different reasons including poverty, decreased self-care, and medication side effects (particularly dry mouth and teeth grinding but I'll get to that) so these are the tips I give to my patients.

Brushing and flossing, obvs. I'm not going to elaborate on this one too much because there's plenty of actual experts on this that you can find that will explain the ideal techniques much better than I ever could.

Chewing gum and tic tacs / mints that have xylitol (and NO real sugar) in them because xylitol is particularly known to stimulate your salivary glands. Normally we associate increased moisture with bacterial growth, but your saliva is actually slightly antimicrobial and an important part of your oral immune system, so the dryer your mouth is the more hospitable it actually is to bacteria. So while you don't want to be drooling everywhere, you do want to make sure your mouth is nice and wet most of the time. Both stimulant medications (often given for ADHD) and antidepressants can cause dry mouth.

BUT if you're straight up eating the xylitol it can have an osmotic laxative effect (pulls water into your gut and makes your shit watery, pretty much all fake sugars do that) so you definitely want to select a xylitol product you can suck on or chew on for an extended period (as opposed to just eating and immediately swallowing like gummy bears or something) to maximize salivary stimulation with the least laxative effect.

It also helps to practice breathing through your nose (which has the added benefit of reducing anxiety), and they even make little sticker thingies to help your mouth stay shut while you sleep. Speaking of which, if you grind your teeth, you'll also want to wear a mouthguard while you sleep. Grinding your teeth can be caused by a lot of different things but the two biggest things I see are anxiety and certain medications (particularly stimulants and antipsychotics).

And lastly this is kind of anecdotal but the biggest thing that helped my oral hygiene was having to mask at work during the pandemic because I could smell my breath all the time. I had never really been good about routine oral hygiene before that, but I started having to brush my teeth before I left the house every single day to be able to tolerate wearing a mask, and for a while I was even brushing my teeth after lunch, but eventually to save time I switched to mouthwash then I'd head back out on the floor while chewing a sugar free xylitol gum behind my mask.

There isn't really anything "extra" you can do at home that you aren't already supposed to be doing to maintain those mouth bones.

You can get dental work for cheap or free by reaching out to dental schools near you. They always need patients for their students.

There is a rally good episode of the Huberman Lab podcast. Can't recommend it enough. Explains how teeth to regenerate to a certain extend and how to promote that.

I have dental care, but the thing we should all be doing is flossing once a day. Brush twice a day. Brushing should take 2-3 minutes. Do a circular motion with your brush and get all of the surfaces clean. Use your tongue to feel for plaque and spot brush to remove that. I hope you can see a dentist sometime in the future.