CONTRAINDICATIONS OF TOOTH BRUSHING AND THEIR SCIENTIFIC CAUSES

Hello friends!
In last article we have seen that how artificial sweeteners of tooth pastes like sorbitol, saccharin are harmful for our health.Now in this post we will see some contraindications of tooth brushing itself.  Yes ,there are some situations in which tooth brushing can cause harm rather than benefits. So let's see what are contraindications of tooth brushing according to Ayurveda and what is scientific reasoning for .

"NA ADYAAT AJEERNA WAMATHU SHWAS KAAS JWAR ARDIT ETI   ।

TRUSHNA AASYAPAAK RHID NETRA SHEERAHA KARNAAMAYI CHA TAT ।।"
            
             (Ashtang rhiday sutrasthan )

This verse is about names of diseases  and situations in which we should avoid brushing teeth. Names are as below-

1) aadyam -just before the meal

2) ajeerna - indigestion

3) wamathu- vomitting

4) swas kaas- cough and asthma

5) jwar - fever

6) trushna- excessive thirst 

7) aasyapak - stomatitis and ulceration

8) rhid rog- heart diseases

9)netra Rog - severe opthalmic diseases

10)shirorog - diseases of brain, head ,neck

11)Karna rog- severe ear diseases

12) ardit - facial palsy

These all are contraindications and all of them have scientific cause behind. So let's see the explaination of causes.  

We should not brush  teeth right before meal or vise versa we should not eat just after brushing teeth! When we brush teeth , the 'pellicle' that is the initial layer of oral plaque  gets destructed . We all know that dental plaque is the cause for dental caries, but not all bacterias are bad for us. The initial layer of oral plaque is called as pellicle which contains some healthy oral microbiome. It protects our teeth from outside influences which could compromise our oral health. So if we eat something acidic right after brushing and before of pellicle formation, then it can compromise our enamel and on repetation of the same, we can damage our teeth enamel over the time. 

In the same way, in digestive disorders and vomitting, strong acidic secretions of stomach comes out in mouth ,making enamel weaker and tooth brushing can harm it easily. 

Other contraindications like asthma, coughing,eye ,throat, nasal infections, fever are all about their severe forms, in which patients can't perform their ADLs( activities of daily living) Even rhiday rog is refferred to it's severe form of heart failure. In asthma,  patient breathes with mouth due to breathlessness and it causes dry mouth and throat,so in severe breathlessness ,brushing can harm teeth enamel as well as buccal cavity. So this is one more cause for not brushing  teeth in asthma.  Similarly when the person is excessive thirsty due to any cause, that time also mouth and throat becomes very dry and salivary secretions also reduce, so brushing can cause harm. 

When we try to brush in stomatitis ,it gives pain obviously ,infact sometimes brushing itself can trigger mouth ulceration and  hence the contraindication.

Well cause of avoiding toothbrushing in facial palsy is no more fun!!

Thus these all are conditions when we can skip our teeth cleaning routine but otherwise else this routine is must!! 

*SPECIAL FOOT NOTE TO AVOID DENTAL CARIES-

Nowadays we all are used to  finger bowl culture of restaurants . We never walk to wash basins after eating in restaurants, because we use finger bowl. Can u believe that skipping this simple habit can make a big difference in reducing prevalence of dental problems? Because when we use wash basins after food, that time we can wash our hands as well as can do proper gargling of mouth with water to rinse mouth thoroughly. And be sure that this simple gargling can help us a lot to avoid earlier dental plaque formation . 

Think about it,and we will meet in next article of classical daily routine of  ayurveda that is DEENACHARYA.