Beyond Bristles: A Guide to Selecting Your Ideal Toothbrush

Hi, everybody.

I'm Dr. Sandhya Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body. As we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy, so take care of it in the most natural way.

Welcome to today's show. I'm your host, Dr. Sandha. We're going to be talking about how do you select a toothbrush that's ideal for you because not one size fits all, believe it or not. And there's a multitude of toothbrushes out there. How do you know which one to use? I get this question all the time when we really look at the toothbrushes, really, they're 5,000 years old, and in ancient civilization, they used basically a stick, a chew stick, a thin twig with some kind of frayed end to remove the food from their teeth. But really, over time, toothbrushes evolved and they started to be made out of foam wood, ivory handles, and for bristles, they used actually hair from hogs, boars and other animals. The modern toothbrushes have nylon bristles, and those really came on the market in 1938. The first mass produced toothbrush was actually invented by a guy in Prison in 1760, 70. He was a fellow prisoners using a rag covered in soot or salt to clean their teeth. And he said, you know what, I think I'm going to come up with something better. So he actually used an animal bone. He bored tiny holes into this and inserted the bristles and sealed them with glue. And there you go, you get the first toothbrush. He started a company, Wisdom Toothbrushes in United K in the United Kingdom. So basically nothing has changed since then, except instead of using a piece of bone, right, we're using pretty much a handle like bamboo, which is natural. This is the Orasana toothbrush or a plastic. But you know, my problem with plastic handles is that we already have so much plastic in the environment. Do you really want to generate more plastic by throwing away a plastic, plastic toothbrush every month or every other month when they get worn down? Why not use something that's natural, something that actually will be biodegradable. And this is why I like anything that has a natural handle, especially a natural handle toothbrush like the Orasana toothbrush. So how do you know what to choose? You have thin or thick gums, do you have crowding? Do you have a wide arch? Do you have sensitive teeth? These Are all things to take into consideration when we're looking at a toothbrush. There is four basic shapes of toothbrush handles. They're straight. This one is actually angled. There's offset. And there is angled offset when we consider the parts that a toothbrush is made out of. This is the head with bristles. Then we got the shank, which is this portion right here, and then we have the handle. And from all the toothbrushes, I have here, pretty much everything. Maybe this is a little bit angled as well. This is actually a straight shank. But how do you know which one to choose? And it really depends on the anatomy and how you really hold your toothbrush. You're supposed to hold a toothbrush not like this, but more like gentle, because if you're holding it with a fist, you're really going to apply too much pressure. How about the bristles? This particular brush head actually is concave. So when you look at it, it's got this concavity in the middle. What is this good for, really? When you're actually putting pressure over the top of the teeth, you're actually. And I'm going to show you it actually, these bristles on the sides will get in the grooves of the teeth. So this would be beneficial if you're actually brushing the grooves of the teeth. So this particular brush actually is also good for denture cleaning. Because of that, you can actually get into the grooves of the teeth themselves. It can be convex. So the other side of this brush, the bristles are convex instead of flat or concave. So this convexity really helps to clean in between the teeth. So if you're actually gonna put it right in between, essentially you can really clean the in between spaces. So this is an interesting little brush that actually has two heads. Some brushes also have the scalloped look, or multi level, as we call it. And basically you're going to see highs and lows, highs and lows. And the reason why manufacturers design these kind of toothbrushes supposedly is to really reach better inner proxy. So this actually. Or in between the teeth actually supposed to clean better and kind of help to. To floss a little bit in between the teeth. For those of you that are not flossing, however, I have news for you. This is not a substitute for. For flossing. You still need to use a water flosser or string floss, whichever one you desire. But does this help to clean better? We don't really have any studies to show that it does. It really matters how long you use it and whether or not you use it. So the difference between natural bristles and nylon bristles, typically natural bristles actually are very hard, a lot harder than nylon bristles. So that's why the standard nowadays is nylon, because really, boar bristles are just way too hard. And nylon bristles are considered better than natural bristles anyway because they don't split and they clean more easily. So I think natural bristles also collect more plaque with time and more bacteria. And you probably will have to change those kind of brushes a lot more often. So how do you choose the kind of brush that you need? So let's say you're somebody who has really thick gums. You know, when you look at your gums, you have a gummy smile, and your gums are pretty resilient. You don't have any gum recession. In that case, you can use a little bit more of an aggressive brush, something with like a medium bristle. You can use a little more power. And interestingly enough, for those people that have that, I actually recommend a rotational brush. So something that actually oscillates back and forth because that scrubbing motion cleans really, really well and prevents you from getting gingivitis, which is what the problem is with really, like, you know, thicker, more resilient gums. But for those of you, let's say they have thinner gums and you have gum recession, and maybe you've had gone to your periodontist and you've had gum treatment already and you're concerned about, you know, brushing too hard because you're going to lose your gum, you actually have the right to be concerned about that. I highly recommend some. Something with very, very fine bristles in this case. I like the Orasana brush. We recommend it to everyone that has a gingival recession. Because defined bristles, it's able to clean just the 1 or 2 millimeters underneath the gum. We need to get that biofilm out from underneath the gum. So as you're using the brush, you actually want to use, you know, into the gum, 45 degrees, wiggle it side to side, or you can do small circles and you want to go about 15 to 20 times over the area. So fine bristles are important for somebody with gum recession. If you have gum recession or thin gums, I discourage you from using a rotational brush, the kind that's frictional, the kind that scrubs, because you don't want to scrub your gums or the gum area even more so. So using something more gentle. I think if you like electric brushes, definitely. I think the sonic Ones like this one actually is not rotational. It works more through vibration, through sonic movement. So this is gentle enough to be used for your gums. I mean, obviously, if you're sensitive to it, definitely stick to the manual brushing. All the studies that we really look at, you know, what's better, electric or manual? You know, there's such a mixed variety of studies and we don't really have a consensus to say, yeah, oh, yeah, absolutely. The toothbrushes that are electric are absolutely better than manual. Not at all. We cannot make that kind of conclusion. For all the studies, at least that I looked at from toothbrush cleaning, it's really a matter of technique and using the right toothbrush anatomy. For your mouth, let's say you have a really small mouth and you have a lot of crowding on your lower front teeth. I highly recommend that you use a smaller headed brush such as this one. This is actually a children's or asana brush. And if you compare it to a regular size brush, I would say is about, you know, 25 to 30% smaller. So for the areas that you have crowding, especially here on the lower front, which is very typical to have, you can actually use this brush in this kind of manner. So you can go small circles for, for underneath there. Okay. Very, very important to use a smaller toothbrush head. Let's say you have braces. So if you're actually going to use braces, some of the studies show that electric toothbrushes will help to clean better. It's just a matter of actually changing and modifying the way you hold your brush over the areas where you have braces. So if you actually have braces, just imagine the braces are right here. You can actually put the brush this way because you're going to hit the braces, but you can go this way. So highly recommend that you change the technique. This is actually called a charter technique. The brush itself, change the direction in which you push your bristles underneath. Other toothbrushes that I've seen out there, you know, it's this ionic toothbrush actually, and it actually has a handle. This is actually from Dr. Tung's. And you actually put your wet finger over the top of it at some point. I know they were considering maybe discontinuing this. Whether or not it actually removes more plaque, I don't know. But the nice thing about their brush head is that they have the longer bristles. And I believe these longer bristles, just like this particular brush, it actually has these very, very fine bristles that extend from the regular size bristle that actually help to get underneath the gum to clean the biofilm or the plaque. I mean, the role of the toothbrush is really to clean the biofilm and the plaque. So if you're using something that has very thick bristles, for example, something like this, just flat bristles, this is not going to get under the gum very well. So choose something that's fine, something that you know you're trying and you're actually feeling that it's cleaning your mouth. And again, it doesn't mean that an electric brush is going to work better for you if you don't use it correctly. It probably won't. So how frequently and when should you brush your teeth? Definitely watch some of our other episodes for to answer all the questions about how you should brush your teeth correctly. But in this episode, I really wanted to give some clarity on how to choose the ideal toothbrush for you.

Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you like me to answer? Message me on Instagram @Dr. Sanda. This is Dr. Sanda. And remember, your mouth is the gateway to your health, so take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.