#brushing teeth

I visit my elderly friend Canolis out of a mixture of obligation, horror, guilt, and a perverted need for amusement. She’s 89 years old, and she’s the type of friend who serves you awful things like stale lemon cake that she keeps for just such an occasion. Her better half is her dog, a frightful little thing she calls Putz. He has quivering little eyes that make him look as if he lost his mind sometime in the Clinton era. 

            I’d learned on a previous visit that Canolis keeps Putz’s nails painted. But she also dresses Putz in pajamas at night - tiny, yellow, cotton pajamas, and the two of them sleep together under a peach colored satin bedspread, their heads like two walnuts on their pillows. Now, to be honest I’ve never seen Putz and Canolis in bed. This is just the disturbing mental image that cropped into my mind the night I watched her slip poor little Putz’s legs into his pajamas and then proceed to brush his teeth with a little blue toothbrush. 

            “Aren’t you going to put some Colgate on that brush, Canolis?” I was kidding.

            Canolis, on the other hand, took Putz’s toothbrushing quite seriously. “Oh, no,” she said, rolling the bristles over his canines. “Dogs don’t like toothpaste.”

I didn’t know they liked cotton pajamas with cartoon dog-bones all over them either.

            I have a dog, and the closest we’ve ever come to putting clothes on him was when my kids stuck a pair of boxer shorts on him and laughed while he slunk around the garage in embarrassment. Though it caused no long lasting psychological problems for the dog, still, it felt wrong on so many levels. I regard dogs like Putz  the same way I do small children whose parents dress them up in sailor suits and make them sing Broadway hits whenever guests come over – with horror, pity, and a dose of perverse amusement. I’m sure that if Putz could sing Canolis would get him a mic and put him on a tiny stage.

            I’ve come to believe that there are normal dogs and not normal dogs, or to be more accurate, normal pet owners and not normal pet owners. One isn’t good and the other bad; they just have different priorities when it comes to their pets. Our dog is dirty, has yellow teeth, gets fleas in summer, sniffs through garbage whenever he gets the chance, and loves to roll in rotten things. If I tried to stick a toothbrush in his mouth he’d probably gag on it. According to my understanding of the dog world, not liking to get one’s teeth brushed is perfectly normal. 

Putz lives a totally different life. I get it that Canolis doesn’t put pajamas on Putz because it does anything for him, but because it does something for her. We all need to some purpose and nurturing something is a great way to find that. Does it hurt anything to dress your dog in yellow cotton pajamas, brush its teeth, and paint its nails? Not really, as long as I try not to think about the fact that something like 90% of the children in the world don’t live as well as Putz.  But even if I do think about that, I remind myself that Canolis does all this because she needs to dress someone up in pajamas, and she doesn’t have some poor child in her house to dress up in pajamas. She has Putz. So I suppose if Canolis wants to go through this ritual each night with her dog, she should do so. What does he care? Though, I have a sneaking suspicion Putz knows how silly he looks, but he endures it. I mean, he’s got a good gig with the old lady, and as long as she’s putting out the Kibbles and Bits, why rock the boat? He’s just a dog with few options in regard to the preservation of his dignity. If Canolis ever fell over dead in her apartment, Putz would probably eat her. The police would find a fat little pajama clad dog lounging on a satin covered bed with that what, who, me? look that dogs are so good at. Somebody would end up taking him home because he’s cute and then wonder why the heck all their toothbrushes got chewed up. 

Dogs don’t care if you humiliate them with silly costumes. They know you’re a little goofy for thinking the costume is a good idea, but they put up with it anyway because dogs are cool like that. I can only hope that I’ll have someone who loves me enough to let me put him in yellow, dog bone pajamas when I am 89. Of course it might be my husband, but I’m not brushing his teeth, even if he has any left.

When I lived in America I was a regular on Spindale public radio in North Carolina. These essays are from my collection that aired on WNCW.

Cathy Adams was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first novel, This Is What It Smells Like, was published by New Libri Press, Washington. Her short stories have been published in Utne, A River and Sound Review, Upstreet, Portland Review, Steel Toe Review, and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, among others. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop and now lives and writes in Xinzheng, China, with her husband, photographer, JJ Jackson.

I may be 98.7% a mess but I’m still proud that I manage to brush my teeth twice a day. If you’re gonna be a mess at least be minty fresh

Here are some tips for autistic people who hate brushing their teeth.

Brushing teeth can be a struggle for autistic people of all ages.

When I was a kid, I hated it and lied to get out of doing it. It took me until I was around 9 or 10 years old to finally learn to brush and floss by myself, and up until that point my parents had to do it for me- often while physically restraining me (otherwise I would try to run away because I hated it).

My parents never really investigated why I hated brushing my teeth, and I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate or identify what was so repulsive about it. So instead, I got punished for lying about it and fighting them to get away from it. That led to countless meltdowns that could have been avoided.

So, here are some tips for those of you who, like me, have issues with brushing your teeth:

• Identify sensory aversions. What are the sensory reasons why you hate brushing your teeth? Is the toothpaste too strong, too minty, a weird flavor, too smooth, or too grainy? Is the toothbrush too rough, too soft, too loud, too big, too small, too short, or too long? Do you hate the feeling of something non-edible being in your mouth?
• Identify motor skills challenges. Do you have trouble moving the toothbrush around your mouth? Do you accidentally brush too hard or too softly? Do you accidentally knock the hard part of the brush against your teeth?
• Get creative to solve for sensory and motor challenges. For example, if the toothpaste is too strongly flavored and you keep unintentionally knocking the hard part of the brush against your teeth, buy milder toothpaste (perhaps a non-mint flavored kids’ toothpaste) and purchase a brush that has a smaller head with softer bristles. If you have trouble spitting out toothpaste, buy some that doesn’t have fluoride in it so that you can swallow it.
• Make the process fun! Is there some sparkly toothpaste that looks fun to you and makes for a good visual stim? Try it out. Is there a toothbrush that has your favorite colors on it, or that includes an image related to your favorite character or a special interest? Buy it! But remember that you have to avoid sensory issues, so only buy something if you know you’ll be willing & able to use it.
• Use a timer so that you know when to stop brushing. Sometimes it helps to know what to expect, and how long you need to be brushing for. Generally speaking, it’s good to brush your teeth for around 2 minutes. There are some very stimmy liquid timersyou can buy, to make the process more fun!
• Start the process slowly. If you have severe sensory issues that can’t be controlled and you haven’t been able to find solutions, you don’t need to force yourself to endure a full 2 minutes of brushing. Maybe you can start by just brushing with water for 30 seconds. Once you’re comfortable with that, move up to 1 minute with water. Then, 2 minutes. Once you’re at 2 minutes, add a tiny bit of toothpaste. Over time, work your way up until you can handle the full amount of toothpaste for 2 minutes.

Remember that physically brushing your teeth is much more important than using toothpaste. Even if you can only use water, that’s better than not brushing at all, because it still removes plaque and food particles.

And if you really can’t handle the toothbrush itself but you’re okay with toothpaste, you can still put some toothpaste on a wet washcloth and rub it over your teeth.

Even if you can’t or won’t brush your teeth in any traditional way, make sure that you’re using some method (like a toothpick) to clean in between your teeth and remove plaque from their surfaces.

Over time, I’ve become more sensitive to the negative sensation of plaque on my teeth, which has turned teeth brushing into a positive experience. However, I sometimes still avoid using toothpaste because I find the flavor or texture too overwhelming in the moment. If I don’t use toothpaste in the morning before going somewhere, I chew on a piece of mint gum instead so that my breath doesn’t smell.

Experiment with what works best for you, and know that it’s okay if your process looks different than other people’s. Cleaning your teeth in some fashion is much better than not cleaning them at all.

~Eden