Dental Articles - Ajax

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There are millions of oral bacteria at any given moment in your mouth, and they build upon all surfaces of your mouth, including your teeth, gums, cheeks and tongue. Your tongue is a rough surface, filled will thousands of taste buds from the front to the back, which cause tons of nooks and crannies where bacteria can get trapped and build up. It is essential to clean your tongue daily, thereby reducing the number of bacteria on your tongue, to help maintain a healthy mouth.

Signs and Symptoms of a Dirty Tongue

– Altered/reduced sense of taste
– Halitosis (bad breath)
– White or creamy coloured coating on the tongue surface
– Occasionally, a bad smell in the nose

How to Clean Your Tongue

You can use several different products to clean your tongue, but ultimately the most important thing is that the bacteria gets manually removed from the tongue surface. This means that just rinsing your mouth with mouthwash won’t reduce bacteria in the same way.

Toothbrush – You can use your toothbrush to clean your tongue after brushing your teeth. Some manual toothbrushes even have a tongue cleaner on the back of the brush. Use the toothbrush and scrape from the back surface of the tongue to the tip several times, rinsing the brush in between.

Tongue Cleaner – Tongue cleaners come in either brush with bristles similar to toothbrushes or as a thin corrugated piece of plastic. Both are meant to be scraped from the back surface to the tip of the tongue until the tongue cleaner comes out clean. Make sure to rinse the tongue cleaner between scrapes. Your tongue cleaner should be replaced at the same frequency as your toothbrush, about every three months.

Ensure to clean your tongue at least once a day, and use mouthwash in conjunction to reduce overall oral bacteria and freshen your breath. If you have any questions about how to clean your tongue or which tongue cleaner will work best for you, we encourage you to contact us today to schedule an appointment.

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Dentist Ajax