(Cosmetic dentist) How to Germ Proof Your Bathroom Against Bird Flu and Other Diseases
No commentsBy Richard Stooker
Think your bathroom is safe from disease?
I can almost guarantee that unless you know some special “germ” secrets, your bathroom may be giving you diarrhea and other unpleasant problems.
Don’t get grossed out — but do get scared enough to take effective action.
Your bathroom is one of the major germ centers of your house, for obvious reasons. If there’s ever a bird flu pandemic, it’s one of the areas you must keep hygienic to prevent the spread of bird flu within your household.
Unfortunately, bird flu is by far NOT the only disease threat you face from your bathroom. So you should not wait until bird flu is killing millions of people before you change some of your bathroom habits.
First habit — in the great traditional battle between men and women about whether the toilet seat should be kept up or down, both men and women are wrong, though women are half right.
The toilet LID should be put down, assuming that after you do your business into the toilet, you flush it.
Studies have shown that when a toilet is flushed, the force of it can send small droplets of urine and/or aerosolized fecal matter as high as twenty feet into the air. They can hit the surface anywhere in even large bathrooms.
Yes, everywhere — onto your combs, your hairbrushes, your hairdryer, your razor — and yes, even onto your toothbrushes.
So if that doesn’t make you close the lid next time you flush — just remember that your fecal matter can contain germs which can cause diarrhea. Maybe you didn’t get it the first time those germs were in your intestinal tract, but give them a second chance at you and maybe you’ll feel them the second time around.
The dirtier the toilet bowl is, the more contaminated material can be spread. So toilet bowls and lids should be sanitized at least weekly.
And while we’re speaking of fecal matter — underwear never be washed in the same load as other clothes. And here I am referring bottom-worn underwear such as boxers and panties, not bras or undershirts.
Yes, fecal matter from your underwear gets mixed in with your other clothes and towels — anything that’s in the same washing machine load. So wash your underwear separately — in hot water — and use bleach to make sure all germs are killed. Once a week or so, run a the washer with an empty load, just hot water and bleach, to disinfect it.
Toothbrushs should be keep in a rack where they dry in the air, because germs prefer wet areas. You should dip them into hydrogen peroxide before and after using them.
Razors should be cleaned and dried after every use.
Your washcloth, loofah or bath sponge can hold bacteria from your skin, including Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause infections and boils if it gets on the wrong part of your body.
Therefore, you should keep them dry between your baths and showers.
And of course wash your bath cloth in the laundry, and wash sponges and loofahs once a week with a mixture of bleach and water.
Of course, you should keep your bathtub and shower and rubber mat and curtains, and all other areas such as sinks and counters clean and — as much as possible — dry. Germs can lurk on every wet surface, so be sure to use strong bleach or disinfectant on any area that’s going to contact your bare skin.
Germs are small and even though we’re generally much cleaner than people were many years ago, most of us still need to improve our hygiene habits — especially in the bathroom.
c 2006 by Richard Stooker
Richard Stooker is the author of How to Protect Yourself and Your Family From Bird Flu and
Bird Flu Blog
Dental Health Flossing - How A Good Floss Technique Is Vital For Your Teeth
By Martin Haworth
Mouth and dental hygiene are vital for more than just your teeth. Indeed your total health is a reflection of how well you look after yourself orally.
Using a toothbrush frequently and with good technique is a start and one which challenges many people in itself. For those who have accomplished a steady and adequate brushing technique, there is another step.
To get really clean between your teeth - those places where you just know you haven’t cleaned everything properly - you must use a dental floss technique to make sure that you are fully protected.
Dental floss will remove food particles lodged in between your teeth in those areas that, for one reason or another are just inaccessible to your brush. It may not be your fault, more a layout error at design stage in your mouth! Still, it’s no excuse to let your dental health suffer in this way.
After all, you now have a great solution!
Did you know that all the bits of food that get lodged between your teeth, start to rot in only a few hours. This will almost certainly be one of the causes of bad breath, if you suffer from that.
So if you want to enjoy the best of dental health, it’s always best to make sure that you get rid of these food particles as soon as you can after eating. And as we now know, just brushing on it’s own, simply cannot get to all the hard-to-reach (bits of stuck food rich) places, which is precisely where plaque builds up.
And that’s where a good dental floss can help you.
There are quite a lot of different sorts of dental floss now on the market, each of them, according to their manufacturers, providing you with the perfect solution to meet and exceed your dental health needs
“With it’s light wax coating and it’s shred-resistant texture, it slides easily between your teeth and below the gumline”, is one manufacturer’s claim for it’s number one dental floss.
Whatever product, within whatever brand you choose, the technique is the same. Here it is, step by step:-
1) Take a big enough piece of floss to wrap around a finger on each hand, which keeps it tight
2) Manipulate the floss down through the gaps between each pair of teeth and letting one of the fingers slip, pull the floss all the way through
3) Avoid, where possible, pulling the floss back up from between the teeth as this can damage any dental work you may have had done - pull through the gap horizontally, rather than upwards
4) Some teeth gaps, especially at the back of the mouth, might be quite difficult to get at and this is where your dental health can slip. So do your best and if you really can’t reach, there are some specialized products that come with a ready stretched piece of floss on an implement, which will really help you.
5) Deal with every gap, every time you floss if you want the best dental health
6) After you floss, brush your teeth in the way your dentist or oral hygienist has advised
7) Ideally, floss twice a day, when you brush (you do brush twice a day - right?)
What sort of dental floss to buy? Well, to benefit your overall dental health, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that you need to buy something that you are comfortable enough with that you will use it regularly.
Some dental floss shreds a bit, so some people prefer a more plastic tape type. For others, they will enjoy using a floss with a flavor, so mint versions are available.
Whichever dental floss type you use, get one you like, even if it is a bit more expensive than the budget brand. Then you will not only enjoy using it regularly, but you will also benefit your own dental health every day.
(c) 2007 Best Dental HealthGuide. If you want to find the best information and product ideas to keep your teeth healthy and bright. You can, right here, on Martin Haworth’s fascinating website at http://www.BestDentalHealthGuide.com
Creating The Brilliant Smile You Deserve
The History Of Hygiene; From Cobs Of Corn To Urine
By Thomas Pretty
Many people will be curious about where the large product range that exists to service the hygiene needs of the modern world has come from. Has there always been a supplier of the hygiene product variety or is the trend we see today for exemplary personal hygiene just a symptom of the society we live in? What did people do in the past when they wanted to clean themselves, surely a hygiene product supplier wasn’t just around the corner to cater for their needs? Today we use deodorants, soap and toilet paper as well as many others, was life in the past just a lot smellier?
We can be pretty certain that the average human in the developed world is a lot more aware of hygiene issues thanks to the product range at their disposal. In the past, while certain products would have been available from a supplier, on the whole people were smellier and hence more accustomed to the body odour of others.
Soap is a hygiene product that has in fact been around for thousands of years. It is believed that the ancient Mesopotamians used soaps for cleaning skin and clothes. These soaps were manufactured by boiling animal fats and then mixing this with ash from the fire. So in fact, a supplier who sold soap would have been prominent in Mesopotamian society. These soaps were undoubtedly harsh and abrasive on the skin.
The Romans and Greeks had a different method of maintaining hygiene, but instead of using a product like soap, oils such as olive oil were applied to the skin. The oil, after it had been rubbed all over the body was then scraped off with what was called strigil; a curved piece of wood that resembled a sickle. While this may have moisturised well, the benefits to hygiene may have been limited.
Deodorant on the other hand is a far more modern invention than soap although the process of perfuming our bodies to mask a smell is relatively old. This type of hygiene product can be seen as a development from the perfumes of the pre-eighteen hundreds that were sold by a supplier to the royal and aristocratic families. Spare a thought though for the ancient Egyptians, in order to prevent lice being a problem they shaved all the hair on their body and wore wigs, thankfully the hygiene product range today does not require such drastic action.
Rolled toilet paper was not invented until the mid-nineteenth century. Records show that to maintain levels of hygiene people used all manner of items to clean themselves. These range from the rather obvious leaves and scraps of cloth to the extraordinary moss and even cobs of corn; yes, honestly cobs of corn! Romans used a sponge on a stick that they took with them wherever they went, especially the legionaries. Some cultures in the east even used their left hand, which is still why in many countries it is still forbidden to use your left hand at the dinner table.
The hygiene product range has obviously entered into the oral world, and dental hygiene has been an important element in the development of the range our supplier may offer today. People have strived to clean their teeth and mouth for centuries, but whether these methods have been effective is debatable. The ancients are believed to have rubbed ground pumice and ash around there mouths mixed with scented herbs. Using a frayed stick to scrub the teeth and even reportedly using urine as mouthwash. Whether this created fresher breath is doubtful and the damage caused by the abrasive materials may have even done more harm than good.
These rather unsavoury methods of maintaining hygiene are certainly a long way from the supplier range offered to us today. Seemingly it is clear that people have always made the effort to be hygienic but it is only in the modern era that this has truly been achieved.
Health expert Thomas Pretty looks into how the hygiene product supplier has been prominent in history through the ages.
Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Creating The Brilliant Smile You Deserve. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
