Why do you need to floss?

Answer 1

Here is an analogy:

As you walked down the street one day, you came across an ant hill rising out of a crack in the sidewalk. You may have noticed a line of ants coming out of the top of the ant hill, heading off in a single file path into a nearby yard. Other ants were traveling in the opposite direction into the ant hill. These ants carried bits of food, leaves, or whatever into the ant hill.

If you were like me, at some point, you kicked the ant hill over, just to see what the ants would do. If you watched closely, you would see that the ants all stopped what they were doing, and they all began rebuilding the ant hill. If you came back the next day, you would have noticed that the ants had completely rebuilt their home, and they once again busy foraging for food.

The reason the ants have an ant hill for a home is because it is the perfect environment for them. The colony of ants must create this perfect environment before they can begin to forage, thrive, and grow the colony.

It is pretty much the same thing in your mouth. But instead of ants, the critters are bacteria. Your mouth, particularly the spaces between your teeth and under the gums, are almost, but not quite, the perfect environment for the bacterial colonies that live in your mouth.

Your mouth is warm, dark, moist, and provides a fairly steady supply of food for the bacteria.

As I said it almost the perfect environment. But the bacteria prefer the perfect environment. So, before they cane begin to truly thrive and grow in numbers, they create the perfect environment. This environment is what scientists call 'biofilm'. This biofilm consists of a thick gelatinous mass that allows the bacteria to thrive. It helps maintain the perfect temperature, constant humidity, and a constant supply of food. Once the bacterial colony has created this environment, they begin to grow in numbers exponentially. And ... so do their waste products.

Their waste products, bacterial 'poop' is very acidic. This acid flows across the enamel of the teeth and other tooth surfaces and little by little, it breaks down the enamel, causing what we call a 'cavity'. Within a few weeks or months, the enamel is so damaged that the tooth now requires a filling to repair the damage.

This is where flossing comes into play. When you floss, you are destroying the perfect environment that the bacteria need to thrive. You are destroying the biofilm. You are dislodging the colony from the surface of the teeth. In short, you are kicking over the ant hill!

It only takes the bacteria about 24 to 48 hours to recreate their home between the teeth, then they are right back to pooping all over your teeth and causing cavities. If you floss effectively once each day, you prevent the bacteria from ever getting to point where they can thrive and cause damage to the teeth.

Flossing daily reduces the amount of bacteria in your mouth and destroys the biofilm that the bacteria need to harm your teeth.