You can use it to slice cheese, remove biscuits that are stuck to the baking biscuit sheet, repair a backpack or tent or winter jacket when you're on the road, and if you're really obsessive, you can clean the crevices in the turned legs of your wooden furniture. Anaesthetists sometimes use dental floss to secure the location of an endotracheal tube - the tie the tube to a few teeth using dental floss. But of course, the main use for dental floss is to clean those little nooks and crevices between the teeth that you simply can't reach with your toothbrush. If you leave the bacteria there for too long, they turn into a plaque. After a while, this plaque turns into the hard substance called tartar.
Tartar encourages the growth of rather more dangerous types of bacteria.
These bacteria make toxins, which irritate your gums and cause inflammation. This is called gingivitis. If you don't treat the gingivitis, you end up with Periodontal Disease. Here the bacterial toxins invade the gums, the bones and the structures that support your teeth. Periodontal Disease is quite serious, and unfortunately, the symptoms often appear late.