Brushing, Brushing...and More Brushing

Twenty two minutes. That is how long it now takes me to clean my teeth.

Here is how I used to clean my teeth:

1. Rinse and spit,

2. Brush with electric toothbrush, including tongue, and roof of my mouth if I remember,

3. Floss,

4. Rinse and spit.



Taking a total of 3 or 4 minutes depending on how much I could be bothered.

Here is how, seemingly, I now have to clean them:



1. Brush with electric toothbrush, concentrating on gums, tongue and roof of mouth,

2. Floss (takes about 15 minutes)

3. Brush with orthodontic toothbrush

4. Brush with teeny little brush thingy the dentist gave me, getting into all the little nooks and crannies around the braces,

5. Brush with electric toothbrush again, using only water,

6. Put wax on. Orthodontic wax! My new best friend! (My second new best friend is minty mouthwash. I have a morbid fear of the braces giving me skunk breath).


All that effort to make my mouth nearly as clean as it used to be!

I have worked out that at this rate of cleaning, if you add all the minor brushing incidents and gargling I'm doing at work, then over the coming year I will spend two weeks cleaning my teeth. That's two weeks of nothing but cleaning. My teeth may well be worn away by then.

I will try not to blog any more about braces. But it's hard to think about anything else when your mouth feels like it's full of barbed wire.