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Medical Forum / General / Dentistry / October 2005bad hygienist advise?
Hi, I've had 2 hygienists and they both tell me that you should use toothpicks, not floss. The way to use the toothpicks is to push them very very firmly between teeht. They say toothpicks are better because it does clean deeper. I prefer floss because toothpicks flatten the gums so i'd get more gaps. 1. Want i want to know: are toothpicks really necessary if you floss? 2. What is a good alternative? 3. Do these "flattened gums" gaps go away when i stop toothpicking? >Hi, > >I've had 2 hygienists and they both tell me that you should use toothpicks, >not floss. The way to use the toothpicks is to push them very very firmly >between teeht. Generally tooth picks are excellent for hors d'oeuvres as I hate when people put their grubby little fingers on my food. Joel >They say toothpicks are better because it does clean deeper. Hah! Back to O.H. school for them. Use a Stim-U-Dent if you must .... its balsa wood. >I prefer floss because toothpicks flatten the gums so i'd get more gaps. > >1. Want i want to know: are toothpicks really necessary if you floss? Nope and they are contraindicated, unless Marty recommends them! >2. What is a good alternative? Stim-U-Dent. >3. Do these "flattened gums" gaps go away when i stop toothpicking? Joel thx, What i mean by toothpicks are stim-u-dents are those contra-indicated too? > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > 2. What is a good alternative? > 3. Do these "flattened gums" gaps go away when i stop toothpicking? > Joel thx, > > What i mean by toothpicks are stim-u-dents are those contra-indicated too? Another suggestion: Pro-Dentec make a plastic variety that can be bent to reach all the interdental spaces easily. Your dentist has to order them. You want to stick with that or the StumUDent as regular toothpics will scratch the tooth as they go through. Personally, I still want my patients to use dental floss at least morning and night. HTH SP  SignatureTake out the TRASH to reply > Personally, I still want my patients to use dental floss at least > morning and night. > -- I thought the same thing until yesterday (well, not morning and night, but once a day - if you consider the biology behind it), when I had a look at the research on this topic on PubMed. It would appear that interdental brushes (and stimu-dents, which not everyone likes) are actually more effective than floss, as well as having higher patient acceptance and compliance. At the same time, we have this ironic situation whereby TePe products (arguably the leaders in easy-to-use interdental brushes) are really hard to get hold of. One would expect the price to drop dramatically if they were pushed instead of floss, and widely available. Weird. > > Personally, I still want my patients to use dental floss at least > > morning and night. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Weird. I'm looking for 'em since I read this. Thanks SP SignatureTake out the TRASH to reply > I'm looking for 'em since I read this. Thanks > SP Swedish company I think (go to http://www.tepe.se/ - products>interdental brushes), though some websites sell them for personal use in the US (e.g. http://www.dentist.net/tepe-interdental-brush.asp). The distributor for Canada is TePe Oral Health Care, Inc., USA Tel: +1 (562) 981-7007 tepe@tepeinc.com Fax: +1 (562) 981-7009 That's certainly strange. I find TePe very easily both in Greece and the UK (perhaps because they are a european company). They are THE interdental brushes as far as I'm concerned). George > That's certainly strange. I find TePe very easily both in Greece and > the UK (perhaps because they are a european company). They are THE > interdental brushes as far as I'm concerned). > > George Well... maybe I'll pick some up when I'm smuggling atomic mouse traps into Britain. Maybe they have a quota or the wood is considered endangered over here. Who knows? You can get a good turtle stew and turtle steaks in the Caman Islands, but practically no where else. On Grand Cayman they have turtle farms: swimming pool sized nurseries where they are shifted from one to the next as they grow. Eventually they are let go into the ocean. Maybe the same thing is true about the trees they make those TePe's from. Then again, maybe not.... Cheers George, have a good week SP SignatureTake out the TRASH to reply SP - just in case there's any confusion, the TePe brushes aren't actually made of wood - see image here: http://tinyurl.com/cxn29 > > That's certainly strange. I find TePe very easily both in Greece and > > the UK (perhaps because they are a european company). They are THE [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > SP > > I'm looking for 'em since I read this. Thanks > > SP [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > tepe@tepeinc.com > Fax: +1 (562) 981-7009 This is excellent! Thanks loads! SP SignatureTake out the TRASH to reply |
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