We can probably all describe what our hands or eyes look like in detail but most of us would have difficulty recounting how many teeth we  have on the upper jaw and how many on the lower jaw.  My aim is to make you think carefully about the various component of your mouth.  Learning how to brush your teeth correctly requires a good understanding of your mouth.

 

The areas of the mouth that we are interested in are the gums and the teeth but lets not forget the tongue too.

A healthy tongue helps to keep bad breath away

 

The tongue is composed of muscle fibres innervated with blood vessels and nerves.
Due to the rough nature of the tongue bacteria can accumulate to give a furred appearance.
When you stick your tongue out you only see a small portion.  Take a moment to look further back and you may see large circular raised dots - these are tastebuds.
Keeping your tongue clean is an important aspect of oral health.
healthy teeth look great in the mirror Feel your teeth with your tongue.  You will notice that the front teeth feel different from the back ones.  They do have one thing in common though. All teeth have 5 exposed sides.  These are the top,the front,the back and the two sides - left and right. You can only clean the sides of teeth by using floss.
Healthy looking gums and teeth Healthy gums can be identified by a lack of bleeding when flossing and brushing. they look slightly different from infected gums which appear swollen, tender and red. Look at how the gums fill up the entire space between the teeth and also how sharp and defined they appear.


Hopefully you now have a better understanding of the areas of the mouth that are important to clean. In later sections we will discuss the effects of too much bacteria on these areas.

I've included my google search bar.  You may wish to look up more information on what healthy and diseased gums look  like etc.  Just type in your phrase and do further research.
Examples of phrases:  gum disease, decaying teeth etc.

Health search engine