Just brushing your teeth is not enough to keep your mouth and teeth clean and healthy. There are many things that can harm your teeth but there are also many ways to improve your dental hygiene rather than just brushing, spend that extra time not the extra money.
To improve dental hygiene we should floss once every day. Dental floss reaches the areas that a toothbrush can't get to and gets rid of harmful plaque between the teeth and by the gums.
Use mouthwashes as well as brushing your teeth, not on there own. Simply gargling mouthwash will not clean your mouth thoroughly, I know in these hectic busy days, it is a lot quicker, but in the long run it will just be more painful and expensive.
Smoking can seriously affect your dental health. As well as staining your teeth (because of the high tar and nicotine content) and causing bad breath, smoking can also affect the health of your gums, which can lead to gum disease.
In a non smokers mouth, one sign of gum disease would be the gums bleeding, if this was the case you would have to go the dentist. But if you do smoke, it can affect the circulation and gum disease could be present without you even being aware, because your gums would not necessarily bleed. Untreated gum disease could be costly in many ways, not just financial terms but general health terms.
You do still need to visit the dentist regularly, at least twice a year as they check for cavities and gum disease. They can help you achieve the white teeth that you are after and will inform you of the correct way of brushing your teeth and flossing. I am sure they will even demonstrate this.
As well as brushing advice they would give you information on the types of food and drink that have a negative affect on your teeth. Chocolate, cakes and fizzy drinks and any other sugary item(s) can attract plaque. If you truly want healthy teeth then eating fruit and vegetables will be much better for them.
In general a person who does not clean there teeth regularly will suffer at some point from bad breath, now there are many mouth sprays that are on sale to help with bad breath, but these are a temporary fix in relation to mouth and teeth hygiene. The best way to cure this, is to brush your teeth at least twice a day. The sprays as mentioned only mask the odour and do not rid your mouth of food stuck between your teeth which left to build up can cause problems.
If you want nice white teeth, without the toothaches and bad breath then spend that extra few minutes a day brushing and looking after them.
I think that flossing is one of the most overlooked forms of dental care. I've put off flossing before because I've been afraid of cutting up my gums. Point is, you're right. We need to do more than just brush our teeth.
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