What’s The Low Down On Water Flossers?
Water Flossers. They’ve been around forever. But, do they work? Are they worth buying?
Here is the answer that we tell all of our patients:
“Water flossers are not better than flossing, but they are better than NOT flossing!”
As we’ve said in other posts, we’ve lowered our standards over the years.
Humans always want to slack in the area of flossing. So we just take what we can get! LOL
By lowering those standards and allowing people to use whatever they will actually put in their mouth, we have seen MIRACLES happen. MIRACLES, we say!
So yes, we recommend water flossers. We love them!
There’s just something about them that gets people to use them more often than floss.
Maybe it’s the rebel side of us that secretly enjoys getting away with “not flossing?” Whatever the reason may be, we’ll take it!
We are so happy to see the smile on patients’ faces when we give them the good news: “Your gums look healthier! Bleeding is much better! Plaque and tartar buildup is lighter! It looks like you are flossing!”
They have come a long way too!
Now there are cordless, travel versions available to us! We don’t need to have a big tank sitting on our counter any longer.
Just throw it in a drawer if you have company coming over. Even take it with you on vacation!
Travel versions are cheaper too!
Use them once per day, just like you would the floss.
Plaque starts to form within 8 minutes of removing it, and tartar can fully form within 24 hours. Our goal is to keep that stuff out of there.
That’s where the “once a day” flossing routine comes from. There truly is a method to our madness and a reason behind it all. If we floss daily, we are more likely to remove the plaque while it is soft as less likely to form a lot of tartar.
To use water flossers correctly,
Just lean over the sink and point the water flosser at your gum line. Follow your gum line around your mouth and shoot the water in between your teeth too. Just let the water and gunk fall out into the sink as you move around.
Please don’t try to look in the mirror. You will most definitely end up squirting your entire bathroom with water. LOL
Don’t try to close your mouth, and turn it on and off as your mouth fills up with water. You’ll fail miserably, and you’ll have quite the hilarious mess throughout your bathroom.
Using warm water works best, to reduce sensitivity.
It’s fun to brush first and then use the water pick to actually see how much the brush leaves behind.
What’s the best thing about water flossers?
1. The fact that people will use them is the MOST amazing thing about them.
2. Besides that, though, this “pressure washer” for your mouth really seems to FLUSH the plaque bacteria and food out quite well.
When you run it along your gumline, the water pressure is great at cleaning up under crowns, bridges, fillings, and dental implants. This is something that even floss doesn’t do quite as well as the water flossers.
Therefore, the “pressure washing” reduces bleeding, tartar buildup, plaque, and gum disease in these areas. It leads to cavity and periodontal disease reduction too!
3. You can dilute mouthwash or hydrogen peroxide in water flossers for extra healing as well. Flush it up under your gum line for extra healing.
Just be sure to rinse the water flosser out with hot water afterward, so it doesn’t get clogged up with mouthwash residue.
4. Crowns and fillings have little “shelves” that trap plaque, so it’s important to “dust that shelf” as best as you can.
As we always say, “the best dentistry is no dentistry,” but when you have to have dental work done, you want to take good care of it to prevent MORE dentistry from happening as best as you can.
(YES, you can still get a cavity under a crown. There is still tooth structure left there that can be eaten away. The only “teeth” that can no longer get decay are dental implants. So, just because you have a crown now, that doesn’t mean that your tooth is immune to future problems)
5. They’re great for kids to have Water flosser fights with, too, so be sure to purchase one for each person in the family! :)
What’s bad about Waterpiks
1. They can make your mirror pretty messy and really make your housekeeper mad…but there’s a way to fix that.
Like we mentioned above, just lean over the sink instead of trying to look in the mirror. Let the water and gunk just flow into the sink as you follow your gumline around the outsides and insides of your teeth. You’ll be amazed at what you see fall out of there!
2. Some people worry that they can push food deeper into the pockets under your gumline. We can’t say this has NEVER happened, but we can say that WE’VE never seen this happen.
WE have only witnessed water flossers HELPING to flush out the debris that the floss can miss. Watch out for this possibility, though, just in case.
If you’ve been hanging out with SODA long enough, you’ve already found your honest dentist, so you’ll have them close by if you feel like this has happened.
And there you have it! That’s the low down on water flossers!
We have two favorites to recommend:
We‘re sure you’ll love either of these two!
Though it would be best if we did, we’ll never claim to know it all, all of the time. Nobody knows it all! We do claim honesty, though, and we sincerely want to help as many people as we can! Our patients have maintained beautifully, following our conservative recommendations :)
So, thanks so much for reading and letting us spill our SODA! Remember to take the time to find your HONEST DENTIST, and be sure to browse around our links and follow us on social media for answers to more of your exciting dental questions, like:
