Hey dental fans Dr Rich here coming to you from my bathroom first of all I'd like to say thank
you to all the wonderful viewers and subscribers I appreciate you guys so much thank you so much
for watching all my videos and thank you for all the questions and comments on the videos
too, please keep them coming any question you have feel free to ask you can even shoot me an email
if you go to my website very nicesmile.com/ askdrrich and I'll answer your questions that
you have so today's video is kind of a follow-up to another video I made the old video was called
how I floss my teeth and in that video I floss my teeth because I had a couple of viewer requests
they wanted to actually see how I floss my teeth the actual mechanics of it
and so this video is similar in that I had a couple requests as well from viewers
who wanted to see exactly how I brush my own teeth so in this video I'm going
to show you how I brush my own teeth so I have my colgate toothbrush that I bought
beginning of July I think I bought it out of Walgreens because I need a new toothbrush and
I'm going to use some Colgate Optic White uh toothpaste this is just a little sample size
that I get uh you know when I buy toothbrushes from Colgate to give out to patients at my office
all right so first thing I'll do let's start off first step with just how to hold it so I mean
you don't want to hold it in a fist if you're a hard brusher you want to use your fingertips
I kind of hold the toothbrush in my knuckles just so it's in mostly in my fingers I have my
thumb on the bottom holding it and I'll curl my fingers around it and that way I have some
have very good control with it I can do what I need to do but I'm not
using a lot of force second is technique brushing technique so everyone has heard of
the Bass technique that's the start at the bottom and just kind of swipe up with your toothbrush and
while it works well and it's very safe and gentle to your gums I've found over the years that most
people have trouble with that motion and over time they tend to get lazy and revert back to
scrubbing up and down or scrubbing side to side so I've been recommending and what I personally use
is for lack of a better name the little circle method basically take your toothbrush angle it
45 degree angle towards the gums start all the way in the back and just go in little circles
that way you're cleaning the teeth very well but you're not putting too much pressure on your gums
you're not going to damage your gums by doing that and I also start in order and work my way around
so since I'm right-handed I'll start in the bottom left way in the back back by my wisdom tooth
and I'll just work my way slowly around until I get to the back right then I go to the inside
same thing 45 degree angle work my way around and I'll do that twice on the bottom and I'll
do it twice on the top and then I'll finish up by scrubbing the biting surfaces of my teeth
and also my tongue as well uh and then when it's all done
you'll have cleaned every single tooth on every single side as long as you remember
to floss as well all right so first step take my toothbrush just wet it with a little bit of water
and a little bit of toothpaste on there
you don't have to go crazy you don't want to use you need enough toothpaste
but you don't want so much that you're just gonna waste it and it's just gonna foam up and you end
up spitting it mostly out so again I'm gonna start on my on my bottom teeth and I'll go from
left to right on the outside right to left on the inside and I'll do that twice so here it goes
you
all right had to spit so I can talk so now I've brushed my bottom teeth
both sides all around so now I'm going to do the same thing on top and again I'm going to start
I'm going to go from left to right on the outside on the cheek side
and then I'm going to go on the inside and go from right to left and I'll do that twice
okay so now I've brushed my top teeth and now
I'll finish it up by brushing the biting surfaces on the bottom teeth and on the top teeth
for this you'll see I'm excuse me for this you'll see that I'm uh just
basically scrubbing back and forth but I'm nowhere near the gums I'm up on the
top of the biting surface so that's all hard enamel that you don't have to worry about damaging
so I'll do that and then I'll do the same thing on the biting surfaces of the uppers
okay and then I'll finish it up by brushing my tongue brushing your tongue is important
because you want to get rid of any bacteria that can will build up over time and could
potentially lead to some bad breath and it's a quick easy thing to do you can use your toothbrush
uh you can use one of those tongue scrapers that they sell either way will work
okay
all right and now so there's been some uh you know controversy not even controversy
iIve just read some uh you know been reading on reddit and uh people are wondering well
after after I brush my teeth am I supposed to rinse out am I not supposed to rinse out well
technically if you just spit and you leave the toothpaste on there the that enables the fluoride
in the toothpaste to linger on your teeth longer fluoride helps make your teeth stronger and more
resistant to cavities and helps prevent cavities so by leaving it on there longer it'll work better
that being said if you're one of those people that uses a lot of toothpaste uh when you
brush and you've got a really sudsy mouth a lot of a lot of foam from the toothpaste
you might not wanna might not want to walk around with that strong toothpaste flavor so
you know in that case go ahead rinse out if you're really worried about the fluoride use a
fluoride rinse like act or the purple listerine that has fluoride in it as well after you brush
just take a sip of that swish it around your your mouth make sure you concentrate on getting your
teeth you don't need to gargle with it just kind of really swish it in between your teeth
for a minute and then spit that out that way the fluoride stays on your teeth but without that you
know kind of toothpaste flavor texture all in your mouth it's just the rinse is a little bit more
pleasant so thank you guys so much for watching I hope I answered uh you know the question that
those few viewers had about how I brush my teeth please hit the subscribe button so you
don't miss any of my weekly dental videos thank you guys so much for watching see you next time