tiktok mouthwash

A dentist on TikTok has revealed how to actually use mouthwash and I am in shock

Wait, what?


There’s not many things in life we think we’ve mastered but looking after our teeth is generally one we’re pretty good at. However according to a dentist on TikTok we’ve been brushing our teeth and using mouthwash all wrong. Great, another life fail.

A dentist’s video on TikTok has gone viral for revealing the actual way we should be using mouthwash as the way we’re currently using it is giving us tooth decay.

@annapetersondentalToo many people are still doing it 🦷##GetGrafting ##dentistry ##fyp ##lgbtq ##lifestylechangestartsnow♬ Inspiration – WavebeatsMusic

Dentist Anna Peterson has explained in three TikToks exactly what we’re doing wrong with mouthwash and why. Anna is a dentist based in Essex and regularly shares videos on how to look after your teeth. Her original mouthwash video has had nearly 2 million views and thousands of comments with people shook at the correct way to use mouthwash.

So what are we doing wrong and how do you use mouthwash?

According to Anna we’re all doing it wrong by using mouthwash after brushing our teeth and instead should be using it before we brush our teeth, otherwise we’re causing ourselves tooth decay. The reason for this is the different levels of fluoride present in toothpaste and mouthwash.

Anna goes onto explain in a second video: “Your toothpaste that you brush your teeth with has around 1450pp fluoride…Your mouthwash has only 220pp fluoride. This is a much lower concentration and it’s not enough to protect your teeth from sugars that you eat and drink. So when you brush your teeth, and you rinse with mouthwash straight away – you just rinse off all the high concentration fluoride, for a low concentration fluoride.”

Anna suggests people should still be using mouthwash and regularly recommends her clients to use it. In a further video she goes on to say the optimum time to use mouthwash is after eating due to the pH levels in your mouth.

She said: “So you’ll wake up in the morning, you’ll floss your teeth, brush your teeth and then you’ll go and have breakfast. And pretty much anything you’re going to eat will contain sugars of some sort. And what happens when you eat sugars, is that your mouth becomes acidic. So it drops in pH.

“If the pH in your mouth drops below 5.5, it begins what is called an ‘acid attack’. If you brush your teeth at this moment, you will effectively be brushing acid into your tooth, and this causes tooth erosion. And that is why you should use mouthwash.”

Well that’s my mind blown.

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