[famblycat]

The article says no studies show that flossing has any effect on tooth decay. But what about gingivitis? I know it's anecdotal, but since I started flossing regularly, I've noticed a drastic reduction in the amount of times I get inflamed gums.

[Dirlewanger]

Exactly what I was thinking. Tooth decay's one thing, gum health is another, and wayyyy more important than teeth health (if we have to choose). Filling in cavities, applying new crowns, all relatively simple procedures these days. Replacing your gums? Yeah, that's probably going to require grafts from somewhere inside your mouth and will require seeing an oral surgeon if your dentist doesn't already do it. Overall, the experience won't be as..."simple" as a cavity filling.

[pavel_lishin]

> Overall, the experience won't be as..."simple" as a cavity filling.

But they do give you date-rape drugs under incredibly monitored conditions, and then you wake up at home and spend a few weeks poking the stitches with your tongue!

Floss your teeth, kids, and brush them regularly.

[sharkweek]

I absolutely hate flossing -- Telling my dentist this, he said that if I tried really hard to do it every so often (1-2 times a week to clean out anything really stuck), mouthwash will be more than sufficient at keeping my gums healthy.

[DanBC]

Here's what the cochrane meta studies say:

(http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD008829/flossing-to-reduce-gu...)

> Twelve trials were included in this review which reported data on two outcomes (dental plaque and gum disease). Trials were of poor quality and conclusions must be viewed as unreliable. The review showed that people who brush and floss regularly have less gum bleeding compared to toothbrushing alone. There was weak, very unreliable evidence of a possible small reduction in plaque. There was no information on other measurements such as tooth decay because the trials were not long enough and detecting early stage decay between teeth is difficult.

(http://ohg.cochrane.org/cochrane-oral-health-group-scope)

[npsimons]

Purely anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure I scrape some stuff off my teeth via flossing. In particular, there are areas near the rounded corners of my molars that, even after a good brushing, sometimes have stuff I can feel with my tongue. By looping the floss around as much of the tooth as possible and doing a few (not just one) up and down movements, it seems to get that stuff.

[beagle3]

But the question is, is that stuff bad for your gum or teeth health? That's not something you should assume a-priori.

An analogy: Whenever you bath with soap, you remove a layer of oil off your skin - a layer that your body puts there to keep you moisturized and hydrated. If you bath and soap too often, your skin will suffer, not improve, even though you're "cleaning" your skin.

[npsimons]

True, but the stuff on my molars feels similar to the stuff on my incisors after skipping brushing for a few days.