Your tongue harbors an estimated 50% of the total bacteria in your mouth, which is why it’s vitally important to clean your tongue during your daily oral health strategy. In addition to flossing and brushing your teeth, the cleanliness of your tongue shouldn’t be neglected as foregoing this process can lead to a host of debilitating oral health issues. Fortunately, there’s a few available ways to ensure you can clean your tongue with ease. Read below to learn the best tongue cleaning methods and why it’s particularly important to keep this specific area of your mouth clean. 

Best Methods to Clean Your Tongue

If your current oral health routine omits the act of cleaning your tongue, you could be missing out on a huge problem area for your overall oral health. Here are the simplest and most convenient methods when it comes to cleaning your tongue:

• Tongue Scrapers: Studies show that using a tongue scraper is the most effective method to cleaning your tongue. When using a tongue scraper, make sure to stick your tongue out as far as you can, place the scaping instrument towards the back of your mouth, press down and move the instrument towards the front of your mouth, and repeat this process 2-to-5 more times. Afterwards, rinse your mouth with warm water as well as clean your tongue scraper before putting it away.
• Brush Your Tongue: Although less effective than a tongue scraper, many people will find it more convenient to brush their tongue with their toothbrush. This isn’t a bad approach by any means as long as you’re brushing your tongue effectively. To effectively brush your tongue, stick out your tongue as far as possible, brush forward to back along your tongue for at least 20-seconds with a soft-bristle toothbrush, spit out the toothpaste and rinse your mouth, then clean your toothbrush before putting it away.
• Mouthwash: While being the least effective method here, mouthwash has the advantage of washing parts of your mouth that your toothbrush typically doesn’t reach. If you prefer not to clean your tongue with a scraper or your toothbrush, either due to gagging or other discomforts, regularly rinsing with mouthwash can keep your tongue relatively clean.

Importance of Maintaining a Clean Tongue

All human tongues are covered in tiny bumps called Papillae, which traps food particles and bacteria that can build up over time if not cleaned off. This bacteria accumulation generally results in a white discoloration that can make your breath smell seriously disgusting. In addition to halitosis, neglecting to clean your tongue can also result in cavities, gum disease, tooth sensitivity, and a host of other uncomfortable oral health issues. Furthermore, the taste buds on your tongue can become blocked if bacteria is left to build up over time; cleaning these taste buds can actually lead to food tasting better due unblocking the bacteria from your taste buds. In general, reducing the bacteria and plaque from your mouth, more specifically your tongue, leads to overall improved oral health.

The Importance of Daily Flossing

When you eat, drink, or breathe, bacteria and other microorganisms enter your mouth. When these bacteria combine with your saliva, tartar begins to form between your teeth, along the gum line, and on your tongue. When tartar isn’t regularly removed, it hardens into a yellow substance called plaque which can build up along your gum line and tongue.

Poor oral hygiene habits allow the acids produced by dental plaque to eat away at tooth enamel over time, which causes cavities. This slow buildup of sticky tartar eventually leads to gingivitis, resulting in red, swollen, and often bleeding gum tissue. If gingivitis is left untreated, the next step in this bacteria buildup is gum disease. Gum disease causes numerous serious health concerns like a receding gum line, bleeding gums, and even tooth loss. 

It’s been said that the mouth is a mirror of health and disease throughout the body, which means that poor oral health can negatively affect overall health. When your teeth reach a stage of intensive plaque build-up, they began to rot which results in bacteria entering into your bloodstream and traveling throughout the rest of your body, which can lead to serious health conditions such as:

• Heart disease
• Diabetes
• Osteoporosis
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Pneumonia

To prevent these numerous painful health complications, it’s important to practice affective oral health habits beforehand. Flossing is the only way to remove this tartar from between your teeth and keep plaque out of hard-to-reach places. Fortunately, GumChuck’s unique design does this better than any other flosser on the market. GumChucks’ design ensures a flossing experience that’s faster, easier, and more effective than competing flossers or traditional floss. Our two handles with disposable floss allow you to comfortably reach all your teeth, even those in the back, while wrapping the floss around each tooth. This creates the vital “C-Shape” necessary to get below the gum line and effectively clean each tooth.