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electric toothbrushes / sonic toothbrushes |
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A number of electric toothbrushes, encompassing a variety of different designs and prices, are available today. As any consumer reviews and evaluates the products they have to choose from they may wonder which electric toothbrushes, if any, can genuinely provide a benefit over the use of the typical manual toothbrush.
You might be surprised to learn that the design of some of the electric toothbrushes which are currently on the market are little changed from those items first available over fifty years ago. Other brushes however, including sonic toothbrushes and oscillating / pulsating electric toothbrushes, are founded on technologies and designs whose application to dentistry is relatively new. In an attempt to help dental consumers make an informed decision about the benefits of electric toothbrushes, our pages explain: the purposes and goals of tooth brushing as a means of preventing dental disease, the evolution of the design of electric toothbrushes and the different modes of cleansing action each of these types of toothbrushes offers, safety concerns related to the usage of electric toothbrushes, and special situations where the use of an electric toothbrushes can be of great benefit. We attempt to provide this information in light of dental research studies that have been published in regards to these matters. |
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The majority of dental problems people experience (including tooth decay, gum disease, and even bad breath) are cause by the presence of dental plaque or, more precisely, the oral bacteria which can be found living in dental plaque.
Sometimes people become complacent in the knowledge that they have dutifully reported to their dentist's office for regular dental cleanings. As you can well imagine professional dental cleanings are important. They provide for the removal of deposits (dental plaque and tartar) which have accumulated on and around a person's teeth. Particularly in the case of dental tartar, these deposits are not something that a person could remove on their own. But routine professional dental cleanings usually only take place twice a year. What about the other 363 days found on the calendar? As soon as a dental cleaning has been completed bacteria have already begun reforming and colonizing dental plaque (although it will take some hours or even days for dental plaque to full form). Bacteria certainly don't take a day, or even a moment, of rest. Once you understand this point it's easy to see why a person's oral home care, those activities that occur on a daily basis, are such a key element in fighting dental disease. To be certain, often the battle against dental disease is won or lost entirely by the activities, or lack thereof, of the dental patient at home. The importance of good home oral hygiene practices by a person, daily, simply cannot be overstated. And if an electric toothbrush can aid in providing this care its usage should be given serious consideration. |
electric toothbrushes & sonic toothbrushes
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As a place to start this discussion we should say, to some degree, the fewer total number of bacteria that are present in a person's mouth (i.e. the less plaque that is present) then the less likely it is that there are enough harmful bacteria on hand to cause dental problems.
Individual free-floating bacteria in a person's mouth are typically of little concern and individually can do little to cause dental problems. Alternatively, a build up of dental plaque (that white film which forms on your teeth) can provide a home for millions of bacteria and therefore create an environment where the harmful effects of individual bacteria, as a collective unit, can cause dental disease. |
It's been estimated that a person can have more individual bacteria residing in their mouth at one time than there are people on planet Earth. |
| The solution isn't to try to sterilize your mouth. It can't be done, and even if it could it wouldn't be a "good thing". There will always be bacteria present in each of our mouths. What you need to realize is that it's not the presence of oral bacteria which is bad, it's the presence of certain types of bacteria, in numbers, which causes dental disease. And reducing the number of bacteria that are present in a person's mouth is one of the goals of tooth brushing. |
More about tooth brushing and dental plaque ...
Another important point to understand about dental plaque and its ability to cause dental disease is related to the age of the plaque itself. As a glob of dental plaque lies undisturbed (such as that plaque often found along the gum line of back teeth where a person's daily brushing easily misses) the types of bacteria that live in the dental plaque changes. There is a shift in the bacterial population living in the plaque and, in general, the change is one from a colony of bacteria composed of strains which are relatively less likely to cause dental problems to ones that have a greater ability to do so (this is especially true in the case of gum disease).
This means that an important goal of tooth brushing is to break up and disturb dental plaque on a regular basis. This way after each brushing even though many of the dislodged bacteria still remain in a person's mouth, the bacteria which are present have to start all over, from square one, rebuilding and repopulating their dental plaque colony. The net effect is that the age of the plaque is kept comparatively "young" and therefore inhabited primarily by less harmful oral bacteria rather than the more pathogenic types. In light of these points about dental plaque, you now know some of the reasons why dentist encourage their patients to brush their teeth at lease twice a day, for two to three minutes each time. It's because they are interested in seeing that dental plaque is removed (so to minimize the number of bacteria that are present) at frequent intervals (so no plaque exists in a location for an extended period of time). |