The main thing when brushing your teeth is regularity and technique. You need to brush your teeth twice a day for about three minutes. The movements during cleaning should be vertical, up and down, from the gum to the tooth. It’s wrong to brush your teeth horizontally. You can learn the technique from the many videos on YouTube or from your dentist.
The American Dental Association recommends choosing toothbrushes with soft bristles to avoid injuring your gums, and brushing your teeth with fluoride paste. Toothbrush – an individual hygiene product. Bacteria quickly accumulate on it, so you can’t use someone else’s.
Toothbrushes are manual and electric. Manuals are divided into soft, medium hard and hard and differ in material and shape of bristles. Electric are divided into mechanical, sound and ionic.
The mechanical ones rotate the head, the sound ones are cleaned with the help of fast oscillations even with a minimal touch, and the ionic ones – thanks to special radiation. According to the American Dental Association, using manual and electric toothbrushes can brush your teeth equally effectively.
Toothbrush needs to be changed every two months. If you have an electric toothbrush, the brush changes. It is advisable to change the brush after colds and oral hygiene.
Darling vs cheap
In supermarkets, budget toothbrushes are sold, in pharmacies – more expensive, in dental clinics you will be offered the most advanced and most expensive ones. Is there a difference and is an expensive brush more useful?
The cost of the brush includes the costs of research, new materials and production techniques. For example, the Curaprox brand came up with its own bristle shape and was the first to produce fibers from polyester rather than nylon. They are softer and the tips of each bristle are rounded, unlike stiffer nylon. To make the brush more effective, the manufacturer decided to increase the number of bristles (in one of the models there are 5,460 instead of 700 for the standard brush).
As a result, all this allows you to more effectively remove plaque from hard-to-reach places and not injure your gums, but such a brush costs more than usual.
However, expensive brushes do not exempt you from the need for thorough cleaning, but only slightly ease it. If you do not have such problems as: increased tooth sensitivity, bleeding gums, numerous crowns and fillings, you can limit yourself to a budget brush of medium hardness. For people with sensitive teeth, hard teeth are not recommended.
I would also like to mention natural bristles. Now everything natural is in fashion and seems more secure. In the case of brushes, this is not so. A brush with a natural pile injures the gums with sharp bristles. In natural bristles, as in any natural hair, there is an internal channel. In it, bacteria accumulate and multiply. There are no pluses to such brushes.
Is an electric brush better than usual?
Last year, we all (well, almost) dreamed of a “smart” brush from Apple. As time goes on, more and more functions appear in electric toothbrushes: from whitening to counting brushing time. We are surrounded by gadgets, so having one more in the bathroom seems commonplace. A recent research review showed that electric brushes remove plaque 21% more effectively and look after inflamed gums 11% better.
Electric toothbrushes were invented for people who have difficulty coordinating movements, but today they are also used by completely healthy people. If your toothbrush synchronizes with your smartphone, has several modes and looks cool, you are unlikely to miss brushing your teeth. In addition, people are more concentrated on cleaning when using such a brush. Sound brushes are useful for gum problems; they improve blood microcirculation.
When choosing, you need to pay attention to the manufacturer, so that the brush lasts longer. Today the leaders are Oral-B and Philips.
How to choose a brush
- Manual or electric – at your discretion.
- Choose a soft brush or medium hard.
- The bristles should be made of synthetics and with rounded ends. The more bristles, the better.
