How To Brush Teeth With Manual Or Electric Toothbrush

Hello there, I’m Dr. Grey Kantor at Kantor Dental Group, Aesthetic Dentistry and Implantology. Today I’m here with my hygienist, Gina Kapriellian, otherwise known as @gcarpri. She is an excellent hygienist and will help us talk about brushing our teeth.

One thing I always like to tell my patients is that cleaning your teeth isn’t just brushing and flossing. Patients will tell me all the time, “I brush and floss. Why am I getting cavities?” Well, I like to relate to building a house. When somebody says, “I built a house.” They don’t say I hammer and nail a house. You can hammer and nail all day; you’re not going to build a correct beautiful home. Just like if you brush and floss your teeth, you’re not going to thoroughly clean your teeth unless you’re doing it in the correct way. So, an important way is to get that technique down and that’s what we’re showing you today.

One thing I want to start off with right off the bat is the length of the simple things, right? Length of time is two minutes, right? It’s very important to brush for two minutes. That make sure you have enough time to get all the surfaces of your teeth. The amount of toothpaste to use – this in this picture you’re way too much. Oh, you know, I’m sure the toothbrush com… the toothpaste companies want you to be using that much. But you can literally use, you know, everything to the left of my finger here. Just a pea sized deposit is what they say. Pea sized deposit of toothpaste, excellent for brushing your teeth. Plenty, you don’t need any more than that.

For your child, it’s going to be much less than that, right? You just get just a little teeny bit on there and brush their teeth. Those are kind of the two main things to work with. We were going to talk about manual brushing your teeth with a standard toothbrush and then we’ll also, so we’ll talk a little bit about electric toothbrush.

So, if you have a manual toothbrush, I know a lot of times people are told, you have to brush it at 45-degree angle. Well, that can mean so many different things to so many people. Is it really 45 degrees when you feel it? Can you see it? You don’t know. So, another way to think about it is basically taking the flat surface of the toothbrush. The main flat portion and resting it directly on the gums. So, instead of placing it directly against the teeth you want it at the gum so that the size of the bristles or what contoured the teeth. And actually, that allows the bristles to get further around the teeth and further below the gum line. Which gives you a more deeper, more thorough clean.

So, with a manual toothbrush, you want to maintain that position and you want to do small tiny circles so that you’re pulsating of the tooth paste in between these areas. But you don’t want to move out of that position. You want to stay where it’s really contouring the teeth and getting down in there. So, you want to do the same for all corners of all of the teeth. So, you want to spend about 15 seconds, one section, 15 seconds another section. Out of the four in your mouth, it will be about two minutes.

So, another area that builds up a lot of tartar and deposit are the lower front teeth because you have your celebriduck just below your tongue that extremes all the minerals from your saliva and mixes with a plaque that’s there. So, it glues it onto your teeth like this really tough deposit that if you even brush it really well it won’t come off. So, you want to prevent that buildup from happening in the first place by spending a little extra time on those lower front teeth. So, take your toothbrush and the tip of it, hold it vertically against the tongue side surface of these lower back teeth. And you want to actually go up the tooth with a little bit of pressure. Maybe small little circles as you come up as one extra chance to kind of clean up that tongue side surface a little bit further. But also, that 45-degree position or the flat portion touching the gums and the side of bristles touching the teeth. You want to do that one extra time for those lower front teeth area in the front portion of it as well. So, same with your top teeth too.

You know we see a lot of deposits of those lower front teeth. And those are also some of the early teeth to be lost in older age. So, definitely something to keep an eye on.

So, some of the areas that build up the most deposit that I see typically every day is the furthest back are the last molars on the tongue side surfaces mainly. So, I know your tongue is there in the way, but try to, try to spend a little extra time or maybe start brushing your teeth in these areas so that you know you’re reaching all the way back and all the way down. And then come towards the easier to reach areas near the front of your mouth. Also, on the cheek side of the upper teeth, especially if you have wisdom teeth, make sure you’re feeling the gums a little bit as you’re brushing so you know you’re getting that right position. And I would suggest again starting furthest back on the last molars and working your way forward on that.

The only difference with an electric toothbrush, you’re still doing the 45 degree as she spoke about. And you’re still, you know, going the same amount of time throughout. Some benefits the electric toothbrush obviously counts to the two minutes and also beeps each time you get to one of those quadrants, right? Four on bottom, four on top, total of eight areas that you want to think about. But the thing you do, you don’t do the little circles. That’s the main difference with electric, you’re just basically holding it there. So, it’s, we’re all used to moving to brush around. You got to change that paradigm thought when you’re brushing your teeth, you got to just simply hold it there and you’re just moving it. Slowly around the teeth.

I actually prefer the electric toothbrush, especially this Sonicare. They have a pattern on their technology, their vibration technique. And it’s supposed to be vibrating the toothpaste thoroughly from the cheek side surface all the way to the tongue side surface and vice versa. While other electric or battery powered toothbrushes don’t have that same capability. So, it doesn’t very through deep clean as long as you do what Dr. Grey said, to hold it down at the gum line and just let it vibrate. It does a really good job getting it nice and clean.

And if you have any more questions, you can comment below and you can also come and see us here at Kantor Dental Group in San Rafael, California.

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