I floss a few times a week and the smell can be just awful, like rotting meat was stuck in there. So I will continue flossing, brushing my teeth, and rinsing with mouthwash, despite the evidence. After 10 years of this and finally going to the dentist... although there was some plaque buildup and some gum inflammation, as the dentist claimed that these were harder things to remove over time and required dental tools, she did let me know that I had no cavities.
Bullshit. Some people have halitosis, some people just don't brush regularly. There is one of my coworkers who occasionally has really bad breath, but it's not clear that he just missed a flossing.
Source: I have a hygiene pact with a coworker. (If either of us ever smells or has a bad appearance, we're pact-bound to tell the other.) I floss twice a year: 48 hours before my dentist appointments, the times I've had bad breath have not been flossing related.
Sure, there's more than one cause of breath odor, and one of those is perio, the prognosis of which is improved by regular flossing (and other oral therapies). Morning breath doesn't reek the same way perio breath does, and it's a world of smells and other issues that are hard to forget.
The truth of the research is that flossing doesn't significantly contribute to oral health when done alongside adequate manual brushing- diet, hygiene habits, and personal chemistry accounted for. That's not new info; clean is clean.
However, most people don't brush adequately or frequently enough and aren't using good electric brushes, so flossing does help them.
And it sounds like you've been really lucky so far, but don't rely on odor as an indicator of your health. By the time you can smell a lot of things, they've been problems for a while.
Huh, that's a cool idea :) Is that common (under another moniker maybe)? I can't find anything on Google. Just proposing such a pact can probably be tricky, but I've been thinking about something similar recently.
We were fast friends and one of us was bold to make fun of the spilled food on the other's shirt, and it led to "oh man I'm glad you told me before I walked into that meeting" which led to "oh yeah let's always do this."
"No thanks Mr. Dentist, an article I read on the internet said that is dumb :-)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWdD206eSv0