A dentist has revealed two common brushing mistakes that could be causing your teeth to turn yellow.
Dentist Ferakh Hamid from Aesthetique Dental Care in Leeds said Brits are making two easy-to-fix mistakes when it comes to yellowing teeth.
Firstly, some Brits choose not to wet their toothbrush before brushing their teeth, believing this will help remove unsightly stains.
But Dr. Hamid said that so-called “dry brushing” can actually make teeth look duller and more yellow.
“Before you start brushing, it’s a good idea to wet your toothbrush. This small step makes it easier to spread the toothpaste over your teeth, making cleaning more effective,” he said.
Dentist Ferakh Hamid from Aesthetique Dental Care in Leeds said Brits are making two easy-to-fix mistakes when it comes to yellowing teeth
‘Dry brushing may seem like a good way to remove surface stains at first, but without water you can’t spread the toothpaste properly, leaving your teeth dull.’
According to him, the second mistake Britons make is brushing their teeth too soon after consuming acidic drinks.
Acidic beverages, such as fruit juice, wine, sugary and sugar-free soft drinks, and foods such as oranges and grapefruit, can weaken tooth enamel.
Dr. Hamid explained that brushing your teeth while the enamel is weakened can cause your teeth to appear more yellow.
“If you brush your teeth too soon after eating acidic foods, it can erode your tooth enamel,” he said.
‘This exposes the yellow layer underneath and makes your teeth appear yellower.
‘To prevent this, it is better to wait a while before brushing after eating acidic foods. This will keep your enamel strong and your teeth healthy.’
Many dentists recommend waiting at least an hour after consuming acidic food or drink before brushing to allow the enamel to recover.
Dr. Hamid’s comments come just days after another dentist warned about the dangers of using whitening toothpaste.
In a viral video that has now been viewed more than 2 million times, the oral health specialist told his TikTok followers that wToothpastes that whiten your teeth ‘don’t actually make your teeth whiter’.
While they may initially make your smile appear whiter by scrubbing away dark enamel, over time the abrasive ingredients cause your teeth to become thinner, yellower and more sensitive, he said.
This is because the protective enamel of the tooth is damaged, exposing dentin (the main part of the tooth that has a yellow hue).
This comes as Britons continue to struggle to access affordable, NHS-subsidised dental care.
Latest official data shows that as of June this year, only 40 per cent of adults in England had visited an NHS dentist in the past two years.
For comparison, that figure was almost 50 percent at the end of 2019, just before the Covid pandemic forced many dentists to temporarily close their doors as the country went into lockdown.
For children, who have free access to dental care, the percentage of those who visited an NHS dentist in 12 months fell to 56 per cent in June this year, down from almost 60 per cent before the pandemic.
NHS dental attendances, for both adults and children, plummeted during the Covid pandemic, with practices closing their doors and no longer offering treatment as a result of the lockdown.
But recovery has still not happened, despite the fact that the darkest days of the pandemic are long behind us.
According to industry experts, this is because providing NHS treatments is not as lucrative as providing private treatments.
In old NHS contracts dentists were paid to carry out whole series of treatments rather than individual treatments, regardless of how complex a specific case was.
In practice, this meant that NHS dentists were paid the same for treating a patient who needed 10 fillings as for a patient who only needed one.
This resulted in dentists losing money on treating some NHS patients because their salaries did not cover the cost of treatment.
Although this contact has now been reformed, the British Dental Association (BDA) estimates that thousands of NHS dentists have left or significantly scaled back their work in the NHS following the pandemic.
The crisis is being exacerbated by the fact that more and more dentists are giving up or drastically reducing their work in the NHS, putting the at-risk group under strain.
A BDA survey of dentists post-pandemic in 2022 found that three-quarters of them were experiencing burnout and felt they were unable to spend enough time with their patients to provide the care they needed.
And just like with the GP appointment crisis, frustrations can run high as patients struggle to access medical care.
The same BDA survey found that 86 percent of dentists reported that their practice had experienced physical or verbal abuse from patients.
The NHS dental crisis has led to more Britons travelling abroad for treatment or carrying out gruesome dental procedures at home using tools such as pliers, because they cannot afford private care in the UK.
