How to Use Tongue Cleaners to Prevent Cavities

Video Transcript

"Hello! My name is Melissa and on behalf of Expert Village, today we're going to be talking about how to prevent a cavity and how to save your smile. In this clip, we're going to talk about how to prevent a cavity by using tongue cleaner. Many people haven't heard of tongue cleaners before. You've brushed your teeth, you've used your good old fashioned toothpaste and your toothbrush, or your electric toothbrush, you've flossed your teeth. We'll get to mouthwash in a later clip. Even if you still brushed your teeth, used dental floss, you still have bacteria on your tongue. That's where the tongue cleaner comes into play. This is great, especially if you are out at night. You've brushed your teeth, but you had wine. Things that are dark in color. Your tongue turns red if you've been drinking red wine. If you have been drinking sugary foods or colas. Again, wine is really good, coffee. Tongue depressor. You'll be amazed at the guck, the bacteria that comes off of your tongue. The neat thing about a tongue depressor. Basically what you do is it's shaped like your tongue and it has little grooves on it. You just run it along your tongue. You scrape it. It's like a tongue scraper basically. Pull it forward. Pull it forward and rinse it off. It's amazing. When you go to sleep at night, of course, you've brushed your teeth. When you wake up in the morning and you have that morning breath, that bad breath, that's because there's still bacteria in your mouth. Not the good bacteria, the bad bacteria. A lot of that is formed on your tongue. That's where the tongue depressor, or the tongue scraper, can really come into play. Usually most of them too have little sharp edges at the bottom so you can pick at your teeth if you need to, but this is key. Another great thing about this tongue scraper is you can throw it in the dishwasher every now and then and it cleans itself."