What’s Your Brushing IQ?

You’ve made it your business to find the best dentist Newport Beach has available, you’ve had a cleaning, and now you’re enjoying your sparkling teeth and clean mouth.  If you’d like to keep your mouth as healthy as possible until your next appointment, you might want to brush up on your tooth care routine.  Let’s take a look at the recommended methods for taking care of your mouth:

1. Use The Right Toothbrush

While there’s all sorts of designs of toothbrush on the market, you can get your teeth clean with a simple, manual brush with the following features:

• smaller head design to allow the brush to reach the back molars
• soft bristles
• densely-packed, rounded-end synthetic fibers

What if you have arthritis or wrist pain issues?  Electric toothbrushes can do a good job cleaning your teeth, too, provided that they use a rotation oscillation action.

2. Use The Right Brush Stroke

While vigorous back-and-forth scrubbing might seem like it would be more effective at removing plaque, too much mechanical action can actually damage your gum tissue and tooth enamel.  Dentists recommend using very short, up-and-down or circular brushing motions to remove plaque on the tooth and near the gumline.  Hold the brush at a 45-degree angle to the tooth.  Avoid pressing too firmly.  

Wondering how firm is too firm?  Take a look at your old toothbrushes: do the bristles tend to become squashed and deformed?  If you’re worried that you’re pushing too hard as you brush, try holding the handle of the toothbrush with just the thumb and forefinger, almost as you would a pen, rather than gripping it with four fingers.

 Read more here: http://www.dentist-newport-beach.com/whats-your-brushing-iq/