Oral Hygiene Knowledge Quiz
Just for fun – are you confident you will answer correctly all these questions?
1) When is the best time to brush your teeth?
a. Morning
b. Evening
If you answer B – you’re right! But what is the difference between brushing in the morning vs in the evening? It’s “TIME”
Most people head out to work right after they brush their teeth. They usually pick up some coffee on their way or have some snack while chitchatting with colleagues. The effect of brushing decreases significantly the moment we start eating so brushing in the morning has less effect on your total oral health. On the contrary, if you brush in the evening and go to bed right after, we can at least get 6-8hrs straight of clean mouth. Thus, brushing in the evening helps reducing the risk of cavities much more than brushing in the morning. Guess what? It’s even BETTER if you brush both in the morning and in the evening.
2) How long should we brush our teeth?
a. 30s
b. 1 minute
c. 90s
d. 2 minutes
The correct answer is D! According to lots of research, an average person needs 2 minutes to brush all teeth without skipping any surface. If you brush in 30s only, the chance is lots of spots on our teeth are left behind dirty. We strongly recommend you all to follow the RULE of TWO – two minute brushing, two times a day, and visiting a dentist at least two times a year.
3) It’s okay to have cavities on baby teeth because we will lose them all anyway
a. Wrong
b. Right
A is correct! Our baby teeth are “scheduled” to shed from 6 years old to 12 years old. Front teeth will fall out first and back teeth will be the last ones to leave. Let’s say a child has a cavity on one of the back teeth at 6 years old while the tooth won’t shed until 12 years old. He/she will have to suffer for years with risk of tooth infection. Except the pain the child has to endure, baby tooth infection can also affect the future adult tooth that is formed right underneath. On top of that, rotten teeth, losing teeth early or frequent pain can affect a child’s total health as well as mental health. That’s why we highly recommend parents to take their children to dentist every six months to check for any oral disease.
We hope you have fun with our small quiz while learning a thing or two about oral hygiene. As your dentist in Federal Way, WA, we value our patients’ trust and time. If you have been our patients already, thank you for choosing us. If you are in search of a new dental home, we are just a call away at 253.941.6365.