Video: Flossing Your Teeth Correctly: Dental Care & Oral Hygiene

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Learn how to floss your teeth properly and get expert tips and advice on how to maintain healthy teeth and gums in this free oral hygiene video.

Video Transcript

Hi my name is Carol and I am a registered dental hygienist and in this clip we will be discussing flossing. How to floss and what types of floss to use. Whenever you start flossing, what you want to make sure of is to get 18 inches of floss from the container. There are several different types to use. My personal preference is the wax because it gets between the teeth a little bit easier. So get about 18 inches and what you do first is wrap it around your middle fingers. This will be your finger to use for the clean floss and the dirty floss will go on this finger right here. Make sure whenever you are wrapping it around your finger you don’t wrap it too tight to cut off circulation. All of the clean floss loosely goes around this little finger and the dirty floss is going to go around this finger. I am going to demonstrate on this model right here. What you want to do whenever you first start flossing is that you are going to use your pointer fingers to get in between the contacts and it is also important when you floss not to push down too hard between the contacts. What you want to do is lightly go in between the areas and once you get it between the contacts of the tooth you are going to wrap it in a c shape around the tooth. The whole goal in flossing is to remove plaque and bacteria against the tooth. What you are going to do is use an up and down motion to remove the plaque on the front side of one tooth and the same on the opposite side of the tooth. Once you finish flossing that area, you remove the floss from the area hopefully not breaking it and with the dirty floss you wrap it around this finger right here so that you have clean floss for in between the next area. You do this throughout the entire mouth. In flossing, I recommend try flossing before you brush that way you remove all the plaque and bacteria from between the teeth so when you go to brush, the toothpaste gets in between these areas. Make sure you get the front teeth also. That’s how to floss.

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Flossing Your Teeth Correctly: Dental Care & Oral Hygiene

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