There’s a battle taking place inside your mouth. It’s happening 24 hours a day, and it’s going to last your entire life. The enemy is dental plaque, and the only way to stop it is with consistent, unrelenting defense.
Dental plaque is a sticky biofilm teeming with bacteria. Plaque is colorless or pale yellow and often goes unnoticed. Plaque can quickly build up on teeth, eventually hardening into tartar and creating an environment for the bacteria to release a steady flow of cavity-causing acid.
There’s no way to permanently remove dental plaque from your mouth. It will always be there. The best you can do is to clean your teeth regularly to prevent plaque from ever gaining a solid foothold on your teeth, and to go easy on the sugary, starchy foods that help plaque to thrive.
Why is plaque so bad?
Plaque forms naturally when the saliva and bacteria living in your mouth mix with the food and drinks you consume. There are over 700 species of bacteria in your mouth — billions of individual bacteria — and they come together to form your oral microbiome. Some of these bacteria are helpful and some are harmful to your health. In a healthy mouth, there is a balance in this microbiome, with the good bacteria working to keep the bad bacteria in check.
Poor oral care, poor diet, and other health issues can allow the bad bacteria to increase in numbers. An overabundance of the bacteria Streptococcus mutans, for example, will lead to an acidic environment in your mouth that strips enamel from your teeth and creates cavities. Treponema denticola and Porphyromonas gingivalis produce toxins that harm the gums.
Tooth decay and gum disease are just the start of your problems, though. An unbalanced oral microbiome has been linked to heart problems, diabetes, and other systemic diseases.
And it all begins when you’re not vigilant in your battle against plaque.
The progression from plaque to tartar
Dental plaque is both slimy and sticky at the same time. It’s like a glue full of bacteria washing around in your mouth, just looking for a permanent home. It’s that film you can feel on your teeth when you get up in the morning.
Tartar — also referred to as calculus — is what plaque becomes when it hardens in place. You’ll usually find it along the gum line or behind or between your teeth in harder to reach spaces. Tartar can be darker than plaque, becoming yellow or dark brown with time.
Plaque is easy to remove from teeth with regular brushing and flossing. Tartar is not. To have tartar removed, you’ll need to visit your dentist or dental hygienist.
Plaque also works fast. It takes only 24 to 72 hours for plaque to harden into tartar. So you don’t want to skip a single day of oral hygiene!
Oral care for dental plaque prevention
The ADA recommends brushing your teeth twice a day for at least two minutes at a time, along with flossing once a day. This should be enough to prevent plaque from accumulating and hardening.
Also, don’t forget about diet. Complex carbohydrates from bread, cereal, and potatoes can be an essential part of your meal plan — but they do feed and encourage the growth of bacteria that can be harmful. Simple carbohydrates such as candy and other sugary foods can lead to big problems without diligent oral hygiene. So you can eat your carbohydrates, but eat them in moderation and don’t let them sit around in your mouth. A simple glass of water can be highly effective at washing away unwanted remnants of a meal and diluting the acid that is so harmful to your enamel. And brush those teeth!
Why can’t I clean tartar from my own teeth?
Tartar can form above and below the gum line and when left unchecked can develop from mild gingivitis to serious periodontitis. While a toothbrush and floss can easily remove dental plaque, they have no effect on plaque that has hardened into tartar. And while you can purchase professional dental tools for very little money on Amazon, it’s just not possible to do the work yourself. For one thing, you would need to set up an elaborate system of mirrors just to see all the places you need to see inside your own mouth. But more importantly, your dentist and hygienist are highly trained and experienced. They know how to do the work without causing damage to your teeth and gums. They know how to recognize signs of trouble beyond just tartar buildup. And they’ll do a much more thorough job, safely removing tartar from places you wouldn’t even think to look.
Even with consistent, thorough oral care, it’s likely that some plaque will get by you and become tartar. So regular professional cleanings are recommended as an integral part of your routine maintenance plan.
