I had canker sores for my entire life, well into my late 20s. I tried everything: changing toothpastes (more on this in a second), changing brushes, using mouthwash, being told my mouth was "dirty" and I need to brush more, etc.
Turns out (at least for me) the sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) used as a foaming agent in (almost) every single toothpaste causes canker sores. I found "canker sore toothpaste" that lacks the SLS, for $7 a tube. I used it for couple of years and it worked!
If you read up on SLS, this is not super-surprising. It's a known skin irritant, and is known to cause more irritation when left on the skin for more than a couple of minutes. Canker sores are an autoimmune issue, so my theory is the irritation triggers an immune response, leading to the sore.
And then I discovered if I rinse thoroughly (twice) after brushing, even with normal toothpaste, I just don't get canker sores anymore! Not sure if it's universal, but canker sores suck so much, I hope this helps someone suffering like I was.
Much better than any over the counter stuff.
> We all eat all sorts of things and it's fine That's like saying you can lose some IQ every so often because you'll live so what
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-teeth-and-gums/how-to-k...
That's just so wrong already. Regular toothbrushes are absolute trash compared to sonics, every dentist will tell you that.
> don't use mouthwash (even a fluoride one) straight after brushing your teeth or it'll wash away the concentrated fluoride in the toothpaste left on your teeth
So in a nutshell, don't use it because it'll wash away the flouride... that you've already rinsed out. Yeah not much of a minus there.
Gonna need a cite on that. Pretty sure the recommendation is to hold the brush at 45 degrees and use circular movements.
Nothing proves flossing is beneficial actually
If the goal of toothbrushing and flossing is to remove bacteria and food debris from your mouth, hopefully an uncontroversial premise, it's pretty obvious how flossing helps.
Just flossing and carefully watching the action of the floss and the plaque is sufficient to demonstrate the benefit.
Sometimes your common sense is more than enough to make sense of the world, no ivy league double blind study required.
You're right though that there's no established effect on cavities.
Having said that, it's difficult to get people to actually floss, so there's a certain amount of uncertainty about the results of those RCTs, and whether participants were doing what they were supposed to be doing.
