Floss…or else?

A visit to the OB/GYN is more appealing to me than a half hour in the dentist’s chair. Granted, after four babies nothing is sacred, but someone scraping and brushing and picking in my mouth feels invasive. While disrobing isn’t necessary at the dentist, the visit usually takes much longer, as the hygienist scrapes at the plaque on the backs and cracks of my teeth. Last week after the half-hour of abuse, the hygienist and dentist both pronounced my teeth healthy. The hygienist commented, “You must be flossing.”

Ever since my first cavity, at age 27, I’ve flossed religiously. Like a nightly devotion to set my heart in God’s hands, I wrap my teeth in the comfort of a two foot piece of string. At first I hated flossing; it hurt my gums. But after a couple of weeks, I was addicted. The space between two teeth, where my new filling lived, was a catch-all. Every night my floss pulled out pieces of my meals. No wonder I had a cavity there, all that food collected, grew bacteria and eventually caused decay.

When I first started flossing I did it to avoid more cavities, but now I’ve read the research and know that a daily floss helps us avoid many dangerous diseases. First and most obvious is gum disease. When food builds up in between teeth, it turns to plaque. Left untreated plaque turns into an even more potent form of decay: tartar. The bacteria in tartar are mean little buggers, full of toxins that irritate and inflame the gums. If left untreated, gingivitis, you know what you hear about on toothpaste ads, leads to periodontal disease. Now you’ll start loosing teeth. Yikes.

With all that nasty bacteria floating around your mouth, you have to figure some of it will transfer to other parts of your body. And surprisingly, these bacteria lead to heart disease. I had a friend whose father’s cardiac problems were traced to his poor oral hygiene, and this was a person with a healthy lifestyle. One study showed that men with periodontitis have a 72% greater risk of heart disease. Poor oral hygiene also affects respiratory health and symptoms of diabetes, not to mention breath odor.

If you have taken the “Real Age” quiz (www.realage.com ), the test that helps you find out how your health and lifestyle affects your chronological age, then you know that daily flossing can add up to seven years to your life. So listen to the dentist, pull out two feet of floss and kill some bacteria today. Your mouth will be happy and you’ll avoid some serious damage from some nasty bacteria.

Working her way through 12,000 loads of laundry in her lifetime, Kathy Gillen has had plenty of time to contemplate life in the solitary confinement of her laundry room. Kathy, a stay-at-home mom of four children, speaks passionately for moms who would rather convince children that tofu was tasty than scrub grass stains out of one more smelly jersey. Kathy has written a book, Lessons from the Laundry, and is waiting for a publisher to find it print worthy. While her kids don’t love tofu, they have adjusted to a whole foods diet and don’t mind most of the crazy stuff they find hidden in their tacos. Kathy blogs at www.lessonsfromthelaundry.com