Confession: I Had Gum Disease

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Waterpik.

Everybody knows all about the fun stuff like stretch marks and hemorrhoids that happen to your body while you are pregnant, but nobody tell you about the dark underbelly (pun totally intended) of secret and shameful things that can happen to you afterwards. 

Ever heard of a PUPPP rash? Me neither, until I got one immediately after delivering Penny. Imagine getting the chicken pox on top of a horrible sunburn, while you are also recovering from major surgery. It was not fun.

I also had NO IDEA that pregnancy so often leads to gum disease.

That is, until I was sitting in the dentist’s chair minding my own business right after I delivered Abby. I was just there for a normal cleaning. I didn’t think much of it. I always brush and floss my teeth. I hadn’t even had a cavity in almost five years. 

When they told me I had Periodontitis (which means that you are passed the stage of gingivitis and have a full on disease in your mouth) I FREAKED out.

I cried. I demanded that they show me the x-rays again.

I was so embarrassed and angry. Not to mention that the treatment for it put our family into a few thousand dollars of medical debt that took over a year to pay off. Plus, it was VERY painful to treat. Scraping, injections, I had more than twenty needles inserted into my gums in one sitting. It was NOT fun. 

How does this even happen? I take good care of my teeth!

The specialist who treated me was super nice. She said that while normal brushing and flossing do help, you can still get gum disease. It’s like how washing your hands during flu season is the best prevention, but it does not guarantee you will not get the flu.

She told me she could tell that I do brush and floss regularly, but some people, like me, are just more prone to problems and a lot of women have gum inflammation and disease as a direct result of a pregnancy.

Awesome.

So, what can we do about it?

The dental hygienist showed me the correct way to floss with traditional dental floss, which is not just sawing back and forth between your teeth in a straight line. You want to curve the floss around your tooth and up into your gum line making a “C” shape. I have very sensitive gums and for a while this would often make them bleed and inflame them more, but eventually they got used to it. 

My dentist also gave me a special toothbrush and prescription strength fluoride.

I’m actually not a huge fan of fluoride because there is a lot of controversial information floating around about it and I don’t want to be making a bad decision in the long run.

It skeeves me out that we know fluoride isn’t safe for young kids and can poison you if you swallow too much of it, yet they add it to our water and want me to coat the inside of my mouth with it.

Now, I do still use toothpaste with fluoride, but I would just prefer not to use a lot of it.

That’s why when I was contacted by , I knew I had found a great solution.

My dad always had a Waterpik in his bathroom growing up and he would let me use it sometimes, especially when I was in middle school and had braces.

They’ve been around for over 50 years and since we had one when I was growing up, I was familiar with this product.

We received their new Aquarius model to try out. It allows you to floss your teeth and massage your gums with nothing but water and has been clinically proven to be more effective than traditional dental floss for reducing gum disease. 

It makes me wish we would have had one in our house during my pregnancies. Maybe it could have saved me all of those hours in the chair, paying thousands of dollars to have my gums pulled back and scraped, then injected with antibiotics.

Yep. This would have been WAY easier. 

You just fill up the little water tank press a button, and you can start flossing your teeth or massaging your gums with nothing but water. It has 7 different tips that you can choose from.

You do look a little silly while using it, though. Want to see?

I made Eddie take pictures of me using the Waterpik in the bathroom last night.

 

The rest of the pictures aren’t quite so sexy. 

It might look a little bit awkward, but it was very easy to use, and it really did make my teeth feel cleaner. Almost like I had just been to the dentist.

is also offering free shipping through March 31 if you use the code FREESHIPWP660.

 Have you ever tried a Waterpik? Did your dad have one like mine?

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Waterpik. I was provided with product and compensation. All opinions are my own.