toothbrushing Archives

The Dental Series was created in collaboration with Bogobrush in an attempt to make dental health care not only important, but COOL, too! In it, we answer common questions and address current topics in the dental field. When Bogobrush is not helping spread the word about oral healthcare, they act as a source for ethically made, sustainable toothbrushes, with a one-for-one give-back program catering low-income communities that may not have access to something as simple as a toothbrush.

Myth 01: “Brushing Hard Helps”

Good for Teeth, Not for Gums

Growing up, I was always told to brush my teeth every night. But how to do so? As an avid rule follower and extremely prudent child, I sought out any tips in preventing the dreaded sugar bugs. Unfortunately, the only advice that most adults had to give was to brush twice a day, and hard,in order to remove all of the plaque on my teeth. If I had any left-over gunk at the end of brushing, it must have been because I didn’t brush hard enough.Today, we know that brushing hard does more damage than good, but do you know why?

I do admit that harder pressures are better at mechanically removing plaque and debris than softer pressures. And a tooth is a very sturdy thing, able to withstand stiff bristles and manually applied forces. However, we must remember that the teeth are surrounded by pink soft stuffs, known as gums, which aren’t as resistant to pressures. Brushing really hard, especially in left-to-right motions as we were previously taught, can lead to gum loss, in a process called gingival recession.

What is Recession?

Gingival recession occurs when gums move away from your tooth. Your gums experience wear, and soft tissue is prone to the damaging effects of heavy brushing. Consider gum recession as your body’s way of protecting itself by retreating. Over time, gum tissue disappears, and less and less gums surround your teeth. Unfortunately, once gum recedes, it does not grow back without the help of surgical dental procedures.

How Does this Affect Teeth?

What does gum health have to do with teeth health? Well, they are all inter-related. The gums are part of the structure that holds your teeth in place and keep the teeth stable. As you experience gum loss, multiple things can happen. First, you are losing the protective barrier around your teeth. Severe gum loss leads to exposure of your tooth’s roots. Unlike the rest of your tooth, the roots are not covered by an enamel layer. Therefore, the outside of your roots are closer to the nerves, and experience more sensitivity to things such as sweets, hot and cold temperatures, and movement. You may find eating ice cream a suddenly unpleasurable experience!

What’s more, as gums recede, there is an increased chance of food getting stuck in between your teeth. The space that gums once occupied is now empty, allowing for more food to be trapped every time you eat. Difficulty in keeping the areas around your teeth clean can lead to constant inflammation, your body’s way of fighting off anything it deems foreign. This can lead to gum disease, otherwise known as periodontitis, thereby causing further bone loss and gum loss! And the cycle continues.

The Right Way to Brush

Knowing all of this, we need to switch up our brushing techniques. Here are a few tips on how to brush successfully, without doing any harm.

Use a soft or very soft bristled toothbrush. I would avoid medium and hard bristled toothbrushes entirely.
Hold the brush like a flute. You’ll soon realize that there is very little force that can be applied when you hold it in this manner.
Point the toothbrush at the gums at a 45-degree angle.
Brush in circles or in small, vibrational motions. You never want to brush left-to-right.
Spend 3-5 seconds per tooth, vibrating the toothbrush around the gum line. Do the same with each tooth, and don’t forget to swing around to the back of each tooth. A person who has all their teeth should take about 2 minutes to brush.
If you own an electric toothbrush that already does the vibrations for you, don’t push down. You can still hold it like a flute and you should still angle it at a 45-degree angle. You simply need to hover it in this way over each tooth for 5 seconds, and your brush will do all the work for you. The worst thing you can do with an electric toothbrush is to use it the same way you would a manual toothbrush. There is such a thing as too much.

With these helpful tips, hopefully you can enjoy eating ice cream and drinking hot tea for a very long time.

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We all know that prevention is better than treatment when it comes to your teeth. Wanting the finest for our teeth, we search for the best gadgets to aid us in making sure our pearly whites are nice and healthy. The most often used tool, and thus your tooth’s best friend, is the handy dandy toothbrush. But when it comes time to select your toothbrush of choice, the wide array of choices sitting on the shelf or available on the net can be very, very overwhelming. Looking at the dilemma from the macro-level, I think the most common fork in the road occurs where we have to choose between a manual toothbrush and an electric toothbrush. Here, I will review the pros and cons of both options, and then talk about which one I myself choose to use, and why.

WHO COULD BENEFIT FROM AN ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSH?

When patients come to me and ask if they need an electric toothbrush, many of them are surprised when I tell them that the answer is no. There are a few groups of people who could benefit from an electric toothbrush, but it is not necessary for everyone to have in order to maintain good oral health. Electric toothbrushes greatly benefit people with Parkinson’s Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, or other such conditions that could impair one’s ability to hold and maneuver a toothbrush. Spinning and vibrating (and whirling and twirling) bristles are really great at restoring one’s manual dexterity when it has been lost. However, if you do not have any existing conditions that impair movement, then there is likely no need for an electric toothbrush at all.

The Debtist

AN ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSH DOES HAVE ITS LIMITATIONS

An electric toothbrush is useful because you’ve got this machine that moves in certain directions to remove the sticky plaque building up on your teeth, but it does have its limitations. Usually, the direction that a toothbrush head spins or vibrates is singular. With manual toothbrushes, you can vary the direction of your brushing at any time, which can be more effective. For example, if your teeth are slightly crooked, an electric toothbrush that only spins in a clockwise direction may miss a particular spot that a manual toothbrush can reach by moving side to side, or up and down. Depending on where the tight corners in your particular dentition are, you can alter the same toothbrush to move different ways in order to reach very difficult areas. Also, the electric brushes are very strong, which some people are not aware of. Using them requires an even softer hand than using a manual brush. Even though the intentions are good, pushing down on an electric toothbrush can cause too much trauma on the gums, causing gum recession. We like gums as much as teeth, so this is no good. Therefore, using an electric toothbrush may seem easier, but easier does not always mean better.

THE TRUTH: MOST PEOPLE WOULD DO JUST FINE WITH A MANUAL TOOTHBRUSH

The truth of the matter is, most people would do just fine with a manual toothbrush. I understand that it takes some time (and practice) to learn how to use a manual toothbrush, but the same is true of anything else in your life. Once mastered, the chore becomes a habit, and habits are subconscious and therefore become easy. If you can put in the time and effort to learn how to use a toothbrush effectively, then a manual toothbrush would work equally as well as an electric toothbrush! But, if you do not want to put in the effort to learn how to properly yield a manual toothbrush, then yes, you can buy a gadget and it can do the work for you. It makes sense that the results of inefficient manual toothbrush techniques will be subpar with the results of a vibrating electric device. However, what most people do not understand is that learning how to brush really well can yield results that are as good, and sometimes even better, than your new gadget.

WHY I CHOOSE TO USE A MANUAL TOOTHBRUSH

On that note, most patients are surprised to learn that I myself choose to use solely manual toothbrushes. There are many reasons why I opt for the manual brushes. As an advocate of slower-living, a lover of nature and sustainable products, and a fan-girl of the lost art of doing things for ourselves, I am partial towards tooth brushing by hand. Manual toothbrushes give us sustainable product options that are more eco-friendly than their plastic vibrating counterparts. We have manual brushes on the market that are biodegradable, recyclable, or recycled themselves. It allows me to pick a product that is in line with my values and my intention of creating less waste. Additionally, I have more control with a manual toothbrush. I can move the bristles in directions that are good for my particular dentition and I can alter the pressures that I place on my gums a bit easier. And lastly, I find them to be much more cost-effective. My persona as the Debtist easily explains why cost-efficiency is important for me. From a dentist’s perspective, I understand that we can do just as well with a manual as we can with an electric one.

While electric toothbrushes do have their uses and are a huge help to those who need it, I believe we have gotten to a point where they may be a bit over-hyped (and possibly over-sold) for the sake of convenience. It’s an easy answer to the question, “How do I brush my teeth well?” Instead of teaching people to be better brushers, we are making them dependent on a tool to do the work for them, and the cost is more plastic being introduced into our environment at ever-increasing price as less and less people learn how to effectively brush. I tell patients all the time that we are responsible for our oral health, and we shouldn’t depend solely on spinning brush wheels. We need to take our oral health back into our own hands. Quite literally. And with that, the battle of the brushes continue.