Much of what I do as an older person involves techniques I have spent much of my life developing. I don’t mean that I have spent a lot of time on these items. I mean that they have been influenced by widely-spaced events occurring through much of my life. Take tooth brushing, for example.

I admit I don’t remember much about brushing my teeth as a child. I must have done it, because my dentist appointments were fairly stress-free, though not the fun fests they were for my children. Them: We’re going to the dentist today? Awesome! Me, silently: Thank you, Dr. Weiss.

After I moved to Massachusetts, every dentist took one look inside my mouth and said, You didn’t grow up here. That’s because we had fluoridation in Houston drinking water. Some say it causes cancer…Not much I can do about it now. As far as oral health, either that, or Crest, or both, worked for me.

As a young, meritocracy-loving engineer I felt that in order to get my due from the dentist I should show up for cleanings having recently eaten something like a chili cheeseburger. My first dentist in Massachusetts was a bit of a sad sack who did the cleaning as well as the exam. I am a bit embarrassed now about having made his day a little rougher.

Around the same time I went through one of my back-to-nature periods. For six months I brushed with hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. At my next checkup, I had to get an unsightly filling near the gum line in one of my front teeth. Back to Crest.

In Brookline we found very competent dentists, and our children never had cavities. When our nephew came to live with us, though, his teeth had been neglected. Even after we got him all straightened out, he hated to brush, much less to floss, and continued to need fillings at almost every visit. Until, that is, I discovered Colgate Total.

Colgate Total was the first major advance in toothpaste technology since Crest discovered fluoride in the fifties, and wow did it work, preventing problems with gums as well as with teeth. We all switched, and everyone had great checkups after that. I dropped my frequency of brushing to once daily–I like to chew gum in the morning, what can I say?–and my dentist continued to be thrilled with my dental health.

My dentist in California doesn’t approve of Total, so I had to do some research to find out why. The active ingredient is Triclosan, an antibiotic. There is definitely an oral microbiome, and Triclosan definitely disrupts it. So do a lot of other things though, and it usually restores itself within hours.

So far I am sticking with Total once per day, though I realize it is a bit odd for an anti-meds, microbiome-aware person like me to be using an antibiotic daily. But it wasn’t a snap decision. My entire history led me here,