• AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    They strained my actual teeth for a couple of days and led to years and years of overbrushing. These little bastards are not my friends.

    • Dweller6227@sh.itjust.works
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      18 hours ago

      I forgot about them until this post. They were a thing dentists sometimes gave (in my experience) to help you tune your brushing technique. They would make areas you missed pink.

      • Etterra@discuss.online
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        17 hours ago

        That’s nice, I wish I had those as a kid. Instead my mother would painfully wrench my mouth open and inspect it because she was a drunk asshole.

      • PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        That actually is nice.

        Like all bathroom habits, we were taught them before we could really think of them as anything other than ritual.

        For me, reducing them to science when I was 10 or so would really help. Granted I have genetically perfect teeth (through no effort of my own), so they might not have given them to me.

  • ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com
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    1 day ago

    I don’t recall them at school, but got them occasionally at the dentist to help learn to brush properly. Chew it and brush till all the pink was gone.

    Our local school actually has sponsored dental treatments if people don’t have their own so maybe it’s a thing now.

  • IsaacscatNala@lemmy.ca
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    23 hours ago

    I have some at home and I chewed one a week or two and they taste great (the dentist gave them to me)

  • hansolo@lemmy.today
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    1 day ago

    I can’t tell if I’m way older or way younger or way poorer than OP.

    I went to an elementary school with 15 kids in the whole school. We were all on well water so every other week we went to the kitchen and swished fluoride for a minute.

    But I have no idea WTF these pink things are. Y’all had toofsbrushes?

    • Jiggle_Physics@quokk.au
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      1 day ago

      They did this once a year in every school I attended until I was in high school (military kid). I started high school in the mid 90s, and attended school in 4 different countries.

    • CTDummy@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      Dental stuff. It stains the stuff that builds up on your teeth when you don’t brush (plaque), so you can see where you’re missing when brushing. Mostly given to kids who insist they’re brushing properly, right after they’ve brushed; to demonstrate they likely aren’t. You can get ‘em here too, but they’re usually given out in dental practices not schools.

      • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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        1 day ago

        We had an assembly where we got a kit that had like a toothbrush and travel toothpaste and floss in it that came with a couple of these. I think the idea was to make sure all the kids got at least some exposure to proper dental hygiene in case their parents weren’t doing it. You weren’t supposed to eat the tablet at school so everyone could see you didn’t brush though, I’m sure plenty of kids did anyway.

    • Cypher@aussie.zone
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      1 day ago

      I’m an Aussie as well and I only know about these because of a friend being a dentist. I’ve never seen them at any dentist’s office

  • CTDummy@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    At school? Wtaf? My parents give me some at home as a “check this out” and so I could see the spots I was missing. My parents would have chewed the fuck out of a teacher if she heard they were making kids at school do it.

    • Soulphite@reddthat.com
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      1 day ago

      Oh honey, back when these were in schools, teachers were smoking in class while beating kids for misbehaving…

      • CTDummy@piefed.social
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        1 day ago

        Ok sweetie? My mum and dad came up in those sort of schools and told us about them, which is why they didn’t tolerate similar shit from my teachers. My mother went to a catholic school in the 60s-70s with nuns running classes. For those that know, that’s nuff said right there.

        So they were pretty militant on the “we’re paying for our kids to be educated, not traumatised, abused or really anything else but that” stuff. Not that we didn’t have our share of shit teachers to deal with but at least they weren’t able to beat us with 1m rulers I guess.

  • Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    60 year old Canadian. I remember these as an occasional thing, like maybe during a dental promotion week? It wasn’t like it happened all the time.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      In Australia my public primary school had a small dental clinic inside the school, we got checkups twice a year for free.

      They didn’t do any actual hardcore dentisting work like drilling for cavities ECT but they would check for issues and give the parents a summary so the parents could get any work done at a full dental clinic.

      I think they would check, clean, fluoride, floss, and check/adjust braces and that’s about all. I think it was pretty standard.

    • lifeinlarkhall@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Yeah we had a dental van come to school but it was still only in the van you had to have these when they did the check up, not in front of the class 😅