I Brushed Twice a Day for 50 Years. My Granddaughter Still Turned Her Face Away.

It was a Sunday. Pot roast day.

Lily ran in ahead of her parents, the way she always does. I crouched down and opened my arms.

She hugged me. Then I leaned in to kiss her cheek, and she turned her face away.

Not rudely. She's six. She just turned toward the wall and held her breath, the way a child does near something that smells.

Nobody else saw it. I saw it.

I stood up, smiled, and went to check the roast. Then I stood at the stove with my back to the room for a long time.

Because here is what I couldn't get past.

My mother stood over me with a kitchen timer. Two minutes, morning and night. I am 66 years old and I still hear that timer.

I floss every night. I use the mouthwash that burns. I get my teeth cleaned every six months, and my hygienist tells me I'm one of her good ones.

I had done every single thing I was ever told to do.

And a six-year-old had just told me, without one word, that it wasn't working.

You can't ask anyone. That's the part nobody talks about.

So I started managing it.

I talked to people a little sideways. I kept a tin of mints in every purse and one in the car. At church I took the end of the pew. When my friend Carol leaned in to tell me something, I leaned back the same distance, like a dance.

I read to Lily with the book held up between us.

My husband said I'd gotten quiet. I told him I was tired.

Stronger mouthwash. The kind that makes your eyes water. My mouth felt scrubbed for an hour. By mid-morning it felt drier than before I started.

A tongue scraper. It helped the mornings a little. By lunch I couldn't tell the difference.

Mints. A tin every few days. A mint lasts about twenty minutes. Then I was right back where I started, with sugar sitting on my teeth.

One of those dental gummies from an ad. The kind with a "secret discovery" and no real label. I took them for a month and noticed nothing. It took three emails to stop the shipments.

After that I quit trying things. I decided this was just what 66 was.

It was my hygienist who cracked it open, and she didn't even mean to.

I finally said it out loud, in the chair. "I do all of it. Why does my mouth still not feel clean?"

She didn't laugh.

Who lives there?

I went home and read for most of a week.

I'm not a scientist, so here is how I understand it.

Your mouth is not a row of teeth. It's a neighborhood. Researchers have counted around 700 kinds of bacteria that live in the human mouth, and any one of us carries a few hundred of them at a time.

Most are fine. Some are good neighbors.

And some live way at the back of the tongue, where there's hardly any air. They break down tiny bits of protein and give off sulfur gases. The same family of smell as a struck match.

Here's the part that got me. The top of your tongue is like shag carpet. A toothbrush cleans the tile. It doesn't do much for the carpet.

It gets worse at night. Saliva is your mouth's rinse cycle, and it slows way down while you sleep. That's where "morning mouth" comes from. A lot of the pills people our age take dry things out even more.

So my mouthwash wasn't crazy. It was just scorching the whole neighborhood, good neighbors included. A few hours later everybody moved back in.

Nobody had ever said the word balance to me. Only "clean."

One review I read said 43% of people over 60 in a US study had this trouble. Forty-three percent. And every one of us thinks we're the only one.

I told Carol all of this over coffee, half expecting her to change the subject.

She got up, opened a cabinet, and set a bottle in front of me. "I've been chewing one of these after dinner since spring."

Carol. The one I'd been leaning away from for a year.

I told her I'd already been burned by a gummy. She turned the bottle around and said, "Read it."

Every strain was named. The amounts were printed. And there was a 100-day guarantee, which is longer than I'd ever needed to make up my mind about anything.

So I ordered one bottle. One.

The first week, nothing. It was easy to chew and that was all.

The second week, nothing I could swear to.

Somewhere in the third week I woke up and noticed the morning taste was fainter. Not gone. Fainter.

By the second bottle my breath was fresher, my mouth felt cleaner longer through the day, and I'd stopped counting mints.

I couldn't tell you which day that happened.

Last Sunday Lily climbed into my lap with a book and stayed for three chapters.

I didn't hold the book up between us.

That's the whole story. I'll take it.

It's called Stay Able Dental Support.

One chewable tablet a day, after a meal. I take mine after dinner. You chew it thoroughly instead of swallowing it whole, so it works right there in your mouth as you chew.

Here's what's in it, straight off the label.

It supports oral health and a healthy balance of bacteria in the mouth.

There's that word again. Balance. For me, that has meant fresher breath and a mouth that feels clean for more of the day.

No weird taste. Made in the USA. Rated 4.9 by customers and trusted by 4,000+.

It is not a mint. It isn't there to cover anything up for twenty minutes.

It does not replace your toothbrush, your floss or your dentist. I still use all three.

It is not a treatment for gum disease, tooth decay or anything else. If something in your mouth hurts, bleeds or has changed, see your dentist first.

And it is not overnight. It took me weeks to notice anything.

If that's you, you are exactly who I wrote this for.

One bottle is a 30-day supply for $37.99.

Subscribe & Save brings it down to $29.99 a month with free shipping. That's about a dollar a day. You can pause or cancel anytime.

I was spending more than that on mints and mouthwash.

I had already paid for one thing that did nothing. I wasn't going to order on faith.

So here's the deal. Try it for 100 days. If it's not for you, return it within 100 days of delivery for a full refund of the purchase price. No forms, no fuss.

A hundred days is more than three bottles' worth of time to make up your mind.

You can keep doing what you're doing. The mints. The mouthwash that burns. The half step back you pretend not to notice.

Or you can chew one tablet after dinner for 100 days and see for yourself. If it does nothing for you, send it back and you're out nothing.

I know which one I'd tell my sister to pick.

P.S. If you have a cleaning coming up, keep it. I kept mine. This goes alongside the dentist, not instead of one.

P.P.S. If there's a grandchild you've been reading to from across the room, I hope this gets you back on the same side of the book.

Sources: oral microbiome review, NIH PubMed Central; NIDCR Human Oral Microbiome Database; halitosis review, NIH PubMed Central; Delta Dental.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. A supplement isn't a substitute for brushing, flossing or your dentist's advice. Individual experiences vary. Dramatization: Susan Miller is a composite character, and her story is a dramatization.