"People who smoke cigarettes, they say:
“You don’t know how hard it is to quit smoking.”
Yes, I do. It’s as hard as it is to start flossing." - Mitch Hedberg
Reminds me of when I had a transphobe actively jabbing my gums and blaming the “estrogen” for weakening my gums.
Thankfully that bitch did not stay there long.
I don’t get how is it that brushing is normal for everyone but somehow flossing seems to be an impossible task. It literally takes even less time. It’s so quick and simple that it just seems dumb not do it. Well, to me at least. Clearly that’s not a very popular opinion.
Let me introduce you to my friend depression. It makes self care way more difficult :)
Unfortunately neglecting self care makes the depression worse, which makes it harder to do self care.
It’s the third panel that really makes it lol
Never floss … floss for three days leading up to dental visit
Dentist pokes around and makes my gums bleed
But I floss every day!
(this was me about ten years ago … I floss every day now, mostly because I really, really, really hate seeing the dentist)
Smelling the floss after being in the Backcountry for a few weeks without floss (just a travel toothbrush and little time to use it), was all I needed to be a daily flosser for life.
Just be careful not to obliterate your gums from daily damage
But seriously, my dental hygienist is pretty rough because my permanent retainer grows tartar like crazy, but I’ve never bled since I started flossing daily.
It looks years before my dental hygienist finally explained it properly for me.
Your gums are inflamed from fighting all the bacteria etc from not flossing. When your gums are inflamed, they’re extra full of blood, so when you do floss, you bleed a whole bunch. It has nothing to do with “toughening up your gums”.
I’ve flossed every day since and haven’t had a problem.
Bonus tips: Tie a loop of floss so you can pull tension between two fingers without garroting/strangling your digits by wrapping a wire around them 8 times. Use proper Butlerweave floss instead of the plastic strip junk. The plastic slides over everything super easily, like the plaque and stuff you’re meant to be removing. If you’re having trouble getting in the habit, floss before you brush. It’s easier to skip if it’s added on after your normal routine. Also, if your life is so fast that you just don’t have the time, you’re probably not brushing your teeth long enough either. Dedicate 5 minutes a day to take care of the only (free) set of teeth you’re going to get!
C’mon, where’s the trigger warning for folks with dental PTSD?
Also I came to post the Mitch Hedberg joke, that’s a classic 😁
I decided during COVID to try to work on my health in whatever way I could get to stick. And I think flossing was my most successful endeavor. I did 2 things that really helped me ease into the habit: 1) I bought a water pik 2) I thought about what it is that keeps me from flossing and I let those things go. So I started off just using the water pik. I did that for about a year and sometimes I would forget, but I’d just hop back on it next time. Just doing this alone helped me to physically feel the difference in my mouth and after a bit, I didn’t like how it felt if I forgot. After about a year I started using floss and this brings me to the things I needed to let go. I needed to learn how to use floss properly, but growing up poor, I would often get in trouble for using too much of something including floss. But some of my teeth are tight and I need a longer piece to get enough leverage. I also don’t like being wasteful and didn’t like using longer pieces especially since it’s plastic waste. I decided to let all of those things go and just use big ass pieces of floss so I could learn how to do it properly. This helped a ton and over time as I got better, I used the water pik less and less and now primarily use floss every night. And now that I’ve learned how, I can use smaller pieces and also have switched to a more environmentally friendly floss. I would say this process took me about 2 years, but I don’t have issues at the dentist anymore like bleeding gums or metal tools jabbing at me. It’s made a big difference and helped me to look at other problems in a similar light: what’s stopping me from doing this and how can I remove those barriers?
Same thing here, also during the pandemic. Only difference on my end is I have also incorporated “Superfloss” into my flossing regimen since I find it easier to get under my permanent retainer
Dentist basically doing their CrossFit
Here’s a joke my mom came up with,
“How often do you brush your teeth?”
“to-daily” (meaning literally just today but sounds like twice a day)
