My dental hygienist actually explained it to me one time.
It has nothing to do with “toughening up your gums” like I used to think. Food gets trapped, bacteria grows, and your gums become inflamed to combat the bacteria. So now your gums are constantly full of blood protecting you from infection and when you do floss (or someone flosses for you), they’re going to bleed a lot.
I started flossing habitually every night and wouldn’t you know it I’ve only ever bled or felt pain from flossing when I miss some stupid popcorn shell thats wedged itself down low (which also goes to show, you don’t event need to do a particularly good job flossing for it to work 99%)
A bonus tip for folks that don’t like garotting their fingertips every night by wrapping them in 6 loops of floss just to get some tension: tie a short piece into a loop, double knotted, and you just pull the loop tight between two fingers. No finger pain, no extra appliance, and it uses less floss.
Extra bonus tip: get proper butlerweave floss. The plastic ribbon bullshit is absolute nonsense. Like trying to wash dishes with a zip lock bag…
Another tip is to use interdental brushes, never thought I was able to use them properly until I watched a video about it.
Was a pain for the first two weeks and got bleeding gums every time, since then no problems at all, I use them in the morning and evening and floss once a day.
My dental hygienist actually explained it to me one time.
It has nothing to do with “toughening up your gums” like I used to think. Food gets trapped, bacteria grows, and your gums become inflamed to combat the bacteria. So now your gums are constantly full of blood protecting you from infection and when you do floss (or someone flosses for you), they’re going to bleed a lot.
I started flossing habitually every night and wouldn’t you know it I’ve only ever bled or felt pain from flossing when I miss some stupid popcorn shell thats wedged itself down low (which also goes to show, you don’t event need to do a particularly good job flossing for it to work 99%)
A bonus tip for folks that don’t like garotting their fingertips every night by wrapping them in 6 loops of floss just to get some tension: tie a short piece into a loop, double knotted, and you just pull the loop tight between two fingers. No finger pain, no extra appliance, and it uses less floss.
Extra bonus tip: get proper butlerweave floss. The plastic ribbon bullshit is absolute nonsense. Like trying to wash dishes with a zip lock bag…
Another tip is to use interdental brushes, never thought I was able to use them properly until I watched a video about it. Was a pain for the first two weeks and got bleeding gums every time, since then no problems at all, I use them in the morning and evening and floss once a day.