How to Floss Teeth

Video Transcript

"First we'll start with a size floss about twelve to eighteen inches in length, and that is pretty important because of the fact that as you're flossing, you will be winding floss around fingers to get the grip, and the tautness that you need. All I did was wrap it around the middle fingers a couple, few times. You want to leave about a four-inch segment, and then I put my thumbs under, and my index fingers on top to support it, and you'll see that it's a very taut piece of floss at this point. I have full control over that. When you're flossing, what you'll be doing is you'll be easing that floss, I'm at the back of the arch, but I'm easing it, and I'm scraping down the side of the tooth. When you're in between teeth, you're actually easing it between teeth, and you're just going to ease it down. You'll be getting on the surface of the back of that molar, and on the front of the one next to it. So, you're actually scraping each and every tooth surface there, and again, you'll ease it back on up. And you'll continue, and you'll proceed to do this throughout the arch. Again, there is no abutting tooth, no neighboring tooth, so you're still going to scrape up and down the sides of those teeth. They're still vulnerable for disease. And you'll do this throughout the entire arch. And again, what you'll want to do is keep changing your floss by wrapping, and going through in that manner. So, you're using a new piece of floss each time that you're going through. Floss holders you'll note, do not enable you to do that. You would be using the same piece of floss in a floss holder. So it would be important in that moment that you be by a sink, and paper towel, so that you'd be able to rinse that off, and wipe that off. So again, you'll continue each and every tooth as we go along, in and out, all the way through the entire arch. You'll do lower, and you'll do upper, not forgetting any area of that mouth."