Dental care for healthy teeth and gums

Proper dental care involves many aspects. One key aspect is a cleaning plan tailored to your individual needs. You will receive it from our oral hygiene expert during your prophylaxis session.

Daily use of dental floss is beneficial, but it alone is not sufficient to prevent gum inflammation in the interdental spaces. We therefore recommend that our patients use interdental brushes daily before bedtime. For large interdental spaces, use larger brushes, while for smaller spaces, opt for smaller brushes. Admittedly, thorough dental care requires some effort, but the benefits are definitely worth it. Daily tooth and gum cleaning can effectively prevent tooth decay, gum disease, and bone inflammation, paving the way to a healthy smile for life.

Do you find daily dental hygiene with a toothbrush, dental floss, and interdental brushes too tedious? If you find it difficult, remember that only daily cleaning ensures a healthy chewing apparatus for life! Therefore, while regular visits for oral hygiene can help prevent serious issues, the overall health of your mouth relies on your daily oral care. The 10-year guarantee also depends on daily at-home cleaning and regular use of interdental brushes.

Once teeth begin to emerge into the oral cavity in a child, they should be cleaned thoroughly all around every 24 hours from that point onward. For milk teeth, using dental floss along with a toothbrush is usually sufficient. The gums are less critical in primary dentition, as they are fully renewed with the eruption of permanent teeth. Important when brushing your toddler’s milk teeth: Place your child in bed when brushing his/her teeth so that you can see all surfaces of the teeth – tongue surfaces, chewing surfaces and cheek surfaces – and also brush them better.

From around the age of 16, adolescents should switch from dental floss to interdental brushes to clean the spaces between their adult teeth. Why? There is 1.5 mm of gum around the tooth before the tooth is anchored in the bone. This transition zone of 1.5 mm, in which the gums are only in contact with the root of the tooth – but are actually loose – is a good breeding ground for bacteria. As long as we clean this transition zone (on the cheek and tongue side) with a toothbrush every 24 hours, all bacteria are repeatedly expelled and cannot cause any damage. Unfortunately, there is one sensitive area in the mouth that the toothbrush misses: the interdental space. To put it simply, the gums double here because two transition zones in front of each tooth meet. This pushes the gums together in the gingival triangle between the teeth. A 1.5 mm culture medium can expand to 3 mm (Fig. 2) — an increase of 1.5 mm too much. These 3 mm spaces cannot be effectively cleaned with a toothbrush or dental floss alone. And it’s not effective with mouthwash either, despite what the advertising might promise.

For a long time, I believed that dental floss alone was sufficient to eliminate bacteria from a 3 mm deep pocket in interdental care. Nevertheless, even in patients who had been using dental floss regularly for many years, I discovered inflamed gum pockets deeper than 3 mm and gingivitis in the interdental spaces. For me, this is a reason to stay persistent and address this issue diligently.

Today, I understand that deeper pockets are rarely found on the cheeks, tongue, or palate, but are commonly present between the teeth. That’s why it’s important for everyone to include interdental brushes as a regular part of their dental care routine once their permanent teeth have erupted. However, since the teeth need to fully emerge from the gums first, this approach is generally effective only from the age of 16 onwards.

Without using interdental brushes, harmful bacteria can thrive unchecked in the interdental spaces for years, potentially leading to gum inflammation. After a few years, this can certainly lead to osteomyelitis. The resulting bone loss leads to progressively deeper pockets and, ultimately, tooth loss.