hal

i'll also include some tips on taking care of your teeth in this post, but please please please try to rinse your mouth with water after each sip somehow. i do this by drinking soda and water back and forth

not everyone's going to try this or like it, but that's okay! i just want you to know that it's an option for helping to protect your teeth from the soda

Tips for Consistent Teeth-Brushing

Something Is Better Than Nothing: if you can't brush your teeth (we've all been there), try some other mouth-cleaning steps that you Can manage

rinse your mouth with salt water or mouthwash (i use a flouride mouthwash myself), "brush" your teeth with your finger, brush without toothpaste, whatever

just try to do Something for your teeth if you can manage it. anything helps! and it might get you used to dedicating a certain amount of time to taking care of your teeth each day, which may make it easier to brush in the future

Try An Electric Toothbrush With A Timer: i hate brushing my teeth manually because i struggle with time blindness; i can't tell how long i'm supposed to brush for and it feels like an eternity when i have to track that shit myself

so i don't! my electric toothbrush has a 2 minute timer that's broken up into four 30 second segments. it pulses to let me know when each 30 second period is about to end too!

so i spend 30 seconds on each "quadrant" of my teeth. 30 secs for the top row (front), top row (back), bottom row (front), bottom row (back)

it helps a lot and mine was like $20 at Target (it's a privilege to be able to buy one, i know that, but it was worth it for me so i recommend trying)

Get The Softest Bristles Possible: the stiffer the bristles, the ouchier the toothbrush is for me to use (and the more damage they risk posing to your enamel, apparently)

soft bristles get the work done without much (if any) pain

Try Flavored Toothpaste: mint sucks for many of us!

i like mint, but even i can't handle most minty toothpastes. i use exclusively Sensodyne because of this. on top of the sensitive tooth benefits, i get a more subtle mint flavor than something like Colgate (which kinda burns me ngl)

but there's also other flavors too! especially if you look at kid's toothpaste

try a few different flavors and see if there's one that you like!

Motivate Yourself with Something:

this is gonna sound kinda gross to some of you but i gotta give y'all the full disclosure here: i did not start trying to brush my teeth consistently until early high school. my parents never taught me how and it never became a habit as a kid. you know why i decided to start then?

because i met a girl. and i thought she wouldn't want to kiss me if she knew i didn't brush my teeth

it sounds silly but i wanted her to enjoy kissing me, so i wanted my breath to smell nice and my mouth to have a relative lack of bad bacteria, so i tried really hard to form a teeth-brushing habit

closing thoughts

it took me the better part of a decade, many cavities, and three root canals to actually create something that resembles a habit of brushing my teeth twice daily though. progress is not linear and i'm not ashamed to speak of my journey and struggles

and that's why i share this advice with y'all! again, i'm not a medical professional and i'm only sharing what has worked for me so far in case someone else could use it

you don't have to try any of this if you don't want to, but i hope it gives you some ideas!

you got this :D

#ray's rambles #autistic adult #actually autistic #adulting #Brushing Teeth

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in reply to @wintersouls's post:

Th Esteemed Deed Commemorator @spineflu3/14/2024, 11:14 PM

after root canal #2 i got serious about toothcare, to the point where i started flossing as a stim (this was during the pandemic so social pressure was kind of thin, comparatively speaking). The best toothpaste i found was the citrus carifree ctx4 - sensodyne levels of fluoride, naH to help with remineralization, no terrible mint flavor.

✨Winter Ray✨@wintersouls3/14/2024, 11:53 PM

thank you for adding on! i'll have to try out that toothpaste sometime 👀

Th Esteemed Deed Commemorator @spineflu3/15/2024, 12:19 AM

oh also buying a couple of these (link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B71L4M58/ ) was a game changer for mouthwash use. much lower friction towards daily use, no "oh crud i overfilled the shot glass and now my mouth is Too Full" moments

✨Winter Ray✨@wintersouls3/15/2024, 6:30 PM

this is a really smart idea, thank you!!

i also really like those "squeeze" type mouthwash bottles where you gently squeeze it and the liquid comes up to a "fill" line

here's an image

🦁 woxi @wolf-and-ghostling3/14/2024, 11:22 PM

my electric toothbrush is from the epoch before they came with timers but i came up with lyrics to the 'beat' of the sound the little motor in it makes, and i switch it up every now and again and come up with new rhymes. it is fun and entertaining to sing/rap along in my head and also makes it bearable to do it for longer.

i would really like some flavoured toothpaste but don't know where to look. i am not a fan of the little tablets ones, the texture makes my skin crawl

✨Winter Ray✨@wintersouls3/14/2024, 11:55 PM

you're so valid for both of those things

personally, my local grocery stores have a few options for flavored toothpaste just nearby the regular minty ones! though, most of them are marketed toward kids and this option might not be available locally to some folks

(i like in a pretty rural, backwards town though, so who knows!)

i haven't tried the tablet ones yet, but i don't think i'd like them either for the same texture reason Dx

samson @squidcrusher3/30/2024, 4:44 PM

If you frequently get cavities, don't be afraid to ask the dentist about a prescription toothpaste. I actually mostly get it now because the flavor isn't as strong and it doesn't foam like most toothpaste.
Be aware when looking at alternative flavor toothpastes that a lot of them end up not containing fluoride. Flavored toothpastes from the kids section usually has flouride, but some of the others don't. I grabbed a berry flavored toothpaste once and ended up having issues next time I went to the dentist because it didn't contain any fluoride!
I also usually ask for a fluoride treatment when I get my cleanings. Some insurance won't cover it for adults, but I think it usually isn't that expensive. I paid maybe $30 last time, which is less than I would pay for a filling so I deal.

@mhoff3/30/2024, 8:28 PM

"Something Is Better Than Nothing"
Confirming this, my dentist did tell me it was fine to brush without toothpaste, especially if the alternative is not brushing.

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