A dentist has revealed that we might have been cleaning our teeth the wrong way for years now.

We all know the importance of maintaining a bright and shiny smile, but what if you have been going about it the wrong way?

If your morning routine consists of you brushing your teeth and then following up with a mouth wash, then you are doing it wrong.

Photo by Yusuf Belek on Unsplash

Dentist Anna Peterson has revealed that you should not use mouth wash after brushing your teeth, but instead use it after eating or before brushing your teeth.

In a TikTok video that has left many surprised, Peterson, who is based in London, revealed why cleaning your teeth this way is wrong.

She said it is all down to fluoride concentrations, which are lower in mouthwash than toothpaste, meaning you wash away the more concentrated fluoride if you use it straight after brushing.

The expert explained that toothpaste has roughly 1450 parts per million fluorides, meaning it has a high concentration to protect your teeth.

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She said, “Your toothpaste that you brush your teeth with has around 1450ppm fluoride.

“Your mouthwash has only 220ppm 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,” she said in the video.

She added, “And in our evidence based toolkit for delivering better oral health, all dentists should be following this.

“And by no means am I against mouthwash. Because I do actually recommend it to my patients. But not every patient needs it. I certainly don’t tell them to use it after brushing.”

Viewers were surprised to hear this and took to the comments section to try and get clarity.

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One user wrote, “I floss, then mouthwash, then brush. Does that work?”

Peterson replied, “Yes, that is fine to do, mouthwash is best to be used after you eat, but no harm doing it this way.”

Another user wrote, “OK, nice to know i’ve been doing it wrong my whole life. (sic)”

After receiving a lot of feedback the dentist posted a follow-up video to explain that mouth wash is not unnecessary, it just has to be used the right way.

She explained that mouthwash is a fantastic product to use, but you have to use it at the right time of day.

“So you 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, your mouth becomes acidic,” Peterson said.

“So it drops in pH. And it drops below 5.5, which is the critical pH, and we call this an acid attack.

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“During an acid attack, your teeth start to dissolve. Now if you were to go and brush your teeth at this point, what’s happening is that you’re brushing the acid into your tooth.

“And this causes tooth erosion. So to get your teeth out of this critical zone, use mouthwash,” she added.