Have you been using Mouthwash wrong all your life?

A dentist has stunned her TikTok viewers after revealing that the majority of people are using mouthwash incorrectly. Dr. Anna Peterson is a London-based dentist who told her 20,000 followers that “using mouthwash after brushing your teeth is going to give you tooth decay.” This TikTok video has been watched almost 3 million times, with people seemingly more confused than ever in the comments.

“Stop doing it,” Dr. Peterson says in the video. “Your toothpaste that you brush your teeth with has around 1,450pp fluoride … Your mouthwash only has 220pp fluoride. This is a much lower concentration, and it’s not enough to protect your teeth from sugars that you eat and drink. So when you brush your teeth and you rinse with mouthwash straight away — you just rinse off all the high concentration fluoride.”

Dr. Peterson also clarified that she isn’t “against mouthwash” and even recommends it to her patients regularly. She just tells them not to use it after brushing. The only time you could use mouthwash after brushing is if you wait 20 to 30 minutes after brushing your teeth, Dr. Peterson clarified in the comments.

Usually, dentists and doctors go viral on TikTok for condemning popular trends — like making fake teeth out of InstaMorph beads, filing teeth with nail files and DIY braces made with rubber bands. But it’s rare these professionals go viral for debunking things people were raised to believe are true. For example, another dentist, Dr. Gao, went viral on TikTok for telling people that we’ve been using the wrong amount of toothpaste this whole time.

That’s why there was a lot of skepticism in Dr. Peterson’s comments:

“Dental hygiene is a lot more complicated than what they teach,” someone wrote.

“Unbeknownst to me I’ve been TRYING to destroy my teeth for decades,” another states, sarcasm dripping off the page.  “Cool.”

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