By Dr. Presley-Nelson
Buying the right toothbrush can be a challenge these
days. If you’ve been coming to our dental office, then
you’ve been taught that the head of your toothbrush should
be small, junior sized, just about an inch or so long. And
you’ve been taught that the bristles should be soft, never
medium and never hard, and each bristle should have a
polished end. “Polished bristles” mean that the tips of the
bristles are slightly rounded so that they don’t damage gum
tissue when you brush properly by inserting them under the
edge of the gums in order to clean out the gum crevice.
But if you go into a store these days, it is very
difficult to find what we just described for you. It seems
that marketing has produced a great variety of rather bizarre
looking toothbrushes, some with spikes sticking out at
angles, others with wide plastic projections in multiple bold
colors, and most of them with a profile that mimics a wave,
or has one end greatly longer than the other. Plus, most of
them are enormous! Either they are almost a couple of
inches long, or their heads are so tall that you could never
fit them between your tongue and your teeth. And they are
expensive!
So then which one do you choose?
If we keep function in mind, you should look for a
small head size so it can fit in tight places and maneuver
well. You don’t want the bristles to be so long or tall that
the brush head won’t fit between your cheek and your back
molars. You want bristles that are very fine and rounded at
the tip so that you can vibrate them under the edge of your
gums. Keeping this function in mind can help guide you at
the display rack. A recent field trip to the dental section of a
common store took me quite a bit of time and effort to find
anything close to a proper brush.
The brand Oral-B had many large, bulky and
unsuitable brushes, however it came through with one
reasonably priced brush that fit our criteria fairly well. It
was called Tracks, and it was $3.19 and though it was a
little large, it looked usable. After that one, the only other
brushes I could find that fit our criteria somewhat, were
children’s brushes. One was bright red and had many
rhinestones on a fat handle and was called BLING. Another
one was a brush by Crest for Sesame Street. This kid’s
brush had a short, fat, pink handle with Elmo on it. That
aside, the bristles, the head size, and the softness looked
OK. The only other acceptable option was a Crayola
Crayon brand children’s brush with a good price on it, nice
bristles, good small size head, but you’d have to brush with
a handle that looks like crayons. That’s great for children
and certainly won’t hurt adults. In a pinch, it is advisable
for adults to shop for, and use, children’s brushes since the
others are too large and unacceptable in other ways.
You could shop online. The toothbrushes we
currently have and recommend at the office are made by
Tess Oral Health. The toothbrush number is 3200c and can
be purchased on their website www.tessoralhealth.com and
on amazon.com.
We always try to give you a quality toothbrush each
time you come for your cleaning and check up and we
would love to see you anytime in between if you’d like to
purchase extras. We want our patients to use a good brush
for optimal dental hygiene