Now… don’t let the title of this piece make you cower into your stinky underpants drawer.

My intention is to simply explain the importance of why you lovely patients must floss your teeth.  After seven years of clinical experience and seeing the outcome of a non-flossing lifestyle, my hope is that those reading this highly important dental topic will gain the vital understanding of flossing and how gum disease will affect your life.

Let’s start by me asking for your full attention by you getting your crusty, Starbucks-stained teeth out of your $8.00 latte you really can’t afford but feel the urge to economically consume every, single morning before you go to your soon-to-be outsourced job that just increased your dental insurance premium for a minute because here’s what I have to tell you.

Are you ready?  Good.

If you don’t floss your gums will become a festering, disease-ridden, smorgasbord of unrelenting bacteria that will ultimately make your gingivae bleed in buckets every, single day of your life.  If you don’t floss your gums you will spend thousands (I’m not kidding) of dollars to simply control the incurable disease (and it is a disease) that you have let build up over years and years of utter neglect.

Exudate will ooze out from underneath your gums and after questioning by the clinical professional (How YOU doin’?) the finding(s) will be defined as ‘asymptomatic’.  That is, you will feel no pain.  What you will feel is the false sense of dental health with the perpetual lie you keep telling yourself when you think, “It doesn’t hurt,” while the blood-filled pus continues to bubble and percolate underneath your gums.

Allow me to continue.

Your social life will remain that of the lonely-lived bachelor/bachelorette whose breath completely, I mean, completely reeks so intensely, you will have no realistic chance of any dating prospects.  You will continue to waste money on the premium whitening kits at your local store to give off the illusion of a healthy mouth in the hopes of attracting a mate.  Your highly offensive, (Not  joking. It’s awful.) metallic-smelling breath from your lack of flossing is so oppressive no one will want to kiss you nor come within five feet of you.  (Yes.  The odor is that strong.)  And we can still smell it through the masks we wear.  Sorry.

Once your teeth become mobile, or loose, from the lack of flossing and the prolific bacteria eating away at your bone that supports your teeth, then, and only then, will you notice and mention the finding to your dentist and/or dental hygienist. (Hey, that’s me!)  You will hear the word ‘unsalvageable’.  You may even hear the word ‘hopeless’.  That means your loose tooth/teeth will have to be pulled out from your rotting mouth because you were lazy and didn’t floss.

You’ve just lost your tooth… which could have been prevented if you only had used that little piece of string.

Sleep tight.