What toothbrush should I use?

This one is one of the easier questions to answer.

If you are into manual or “hand-powered” toothbrushes, the softest, softest bristled toothbrushes you can find.

If you are into electric toothbrushes, get one that is wall-powered rather than battery powered. This is good for the environment generally, but it also avoids the “too-lazy-and-can’t-be-bothered-to-get-replacement-batteries” dilemma, that many time-poor individuals like myself also face.

Plaque is generally soft and easy to remove. Once it becomes, calculus it’s not possible for it to be removed. Calculus is “hardened plaque”, something that we are all subject to in different quantities. i.e. some people naturally build up more calculus on their teeth especially on the front lower teeth.

Once calculus forms, only professional cleaning at your friendly dental clinic will remove the more resistant calculus that builds onto your teeth. The other name for calculus that floats around is “tartar”.

So what does this all mean? You just need a super soft bristled toothbrush to remove the plaque rather than worrying about moderate/hard bristled toothbrushes which are liable to do damage to your teeth by wearing away the enamel on the teeth. Dentists see this damage almost on a daily basis.

As for electric toothbrushes, they do the work for you. That’s the big advantage….saving time. The bristles oscillate at an incredibly high rate and basically “vibrate” the plaque off the teeth. The biggest issue I face and many people face is spending actually “too much time” brushing their teeth with electric toothbrushes. Usually, 4 seconds per tooth surface per tooth is adequate with an electric toothbrush.

With the average human being nowadays having 28 teeth (minus 4 because wisdom teeth are being having to be removed more regularly nowadays).

The front teeth basically have 2 surfaces, front and back.

The back teeth mainly have 3 surfaces with the very back teeth having 4 surfaces.

12 front teeth x 2 surfaces = 24 surfaces

12 back teeth x 3 surfaces = 36 surfaces

4 back teeth x 4 surfaces = 16 surfaces

That makes a total of 76 surfaces x 4 seconds gives you a grand total of 304 seconds! Whew!

That’s a very specific method however that means it should take you about 5 minutes if you’re doing a super thorough job. As you get better, you should work towards spending maybe 2 seconds per surface, which should get it down to about 180 seconds…or 3 minutes.

With good brushing technique, manual or electric and regular check-ups and cleans at the dentist, you should keep the teeth decay-free and gum disease free for life!

Give us a call at Enso Dental North Perth to book in for an appointment today.

Enso Dental
Dr. Rahul Reddy