Proper Toothbrushing Techniques

Hello, this is Dr. William Neal, dentist, periodontist in West He Falls,

Texas. Today's lesson is on proper toothbrushing.

First, a lesson on dental anatomy.

Here we have a cross-section of a lower tooth like this, and you

can see this might be the cheek side of the tooth, this would be the

tongue side. We have a skin layer on the gum.

You see the tooth, the jawbone. But we have this green biofilm

slime that grows on anything that's wet and warm, and we're trying to

focus right here on the tooth. So when you're

brushing,

you must use a soft-bristle brush.

It's gotta have s- uh, straight bristle tips like this,

not bristles that are splayed out, such as this.

So we wanna take the soft-bristle brush, and we want to

brush the teeth. We wanna place the bristle tips on the

tooth,

not on the gum. So we're gonna press

the soft-bristle brush, push hard, and we're just gonna move the

handle like this, back and forth, up and down, little bitty circles,

any way you want to, but not like this.

And certainly not like that. You go this way, and you go that

way on the tongue side. This, you have to do by braille.

This, you s- look in the mirror for most of the,

most of that.

So then we're gonna use grandma's tooth powder.

It's been arou- been around for probably a couple hundred

years.

And so we have some baking soda.

That neutralizes bad breath odor and c- and acid that causes

tooth decay. We're gonna use some hydrogen peroxide.

That will add oxygenating bubbles to that nasty anaerobic environment.

And we're gonna add a little bit of salt.

So the way we do this, take a little bit of, uh, small, uh,

glass, and we're gonna add in,

uh, about a teaspoon of baking soda,

and like that.

We're gonna add in some salt,

and

a little bit,

not too much. And then we're gonna add in the hydrogen

peroxide

to make a paste.

Something like that.

So we're gonna take that concoction,

and we're gonna scoop up about half of that, and we're gonna

smear that on the teeth and the gum, all the

way around lip side and tongue side, just like

that. And that's gonna do the job

of adding oxygen bubbles to the anaerobic environment, absorbing

bad breath odor, and all good things will happen.

Bad bacteria hate that. And then, so we're gonna take

that, and we're going to rinse that.

We're gonna spit that baking soda out, but not rinse.

And we're gonna rinse out all the, uh, baking soda from the

toothbrush. And so we're gonna take that concoction,

and we're going to... We still have some remnants of

baking soda around the teeth. We're gonna take our soft, hot,

clean-bristle toothbrush and try to drive that baking soda

underneath the gumline, like that. I showed you the technique before.

This where, this is where the, uh, you really, it's the business end of

brushing. I like the baking soda 'cause it's cheap.

You probably have it around the house anyway, and it's been time-tested

for decades. And the modern, um,

toothbrush products are mimicking that

baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. So there you have it.

I hope you enjoyed that. Hope you found it interesting,

and hope to see you soon.

Hey, thank you for watching. God bless.