So, have you been getting ads popping up on your feed for these electric flossers? What’s that all about? Today, we’re going to dive into one. I ordered it, I’ve used it, and I’m going to give you my feedback. Wait until the end of the video and let’s see if it’s something I recommend to add to your daily care.
Hi, I’m Dr. Brett Langston. I’m a prosthodontist and the owner of Dental Implant and Aesthetic Specialist here in Brookhaven, Georgia, and I’m here to help you watch your mouth.
Introduction to Electric Flossers
Today, we’re going to talk about these electric flossers. This is something that’s kind of new to me. I mean, I know I’m a big fan of electric toothbrushes—the Sonicare, the Oral-B. All these companies are coming out with these amazing products that have taken the conventional toothbrush with a hard bristle and really ramped it up to it’s enabled my patients to have a lot better home care, especially patients that have limited mobility, have a difficult time getting to all those areas. The addition of the mechanical vibrations and the technology in those electric toothbrushes makes all the difference in the world.
My Experience with Electric Flossers
I’ve been getting advertisements for these popping up on my feed all over the place. So, I finally went in and bought one, and I’m going to show you kind of what I went through, my experience with it, and whether I would recommend it for my patients.
It comes with a nice electric piece. Usually, it also comes with backup heads. There’s a couple of different brands out there. I don’t want to shill for one company over another—they’re all pretty much the same technology. Essentially, what you’re working with is the base, which you hold like an electric toothbrush if you’re familiar with that. The headpiece is a disposable piece, and then most companies recommend you trade them out about once a week.
This one is really cool because it’s got, in addition to the floss that goes in between these two tips, rubber tips that are gum-stimulating tips. So, it’s a pretty cool product and very simple to use. Basically, you just hit the on button, and it vibrates. Then, you go in between each of the teeth.
Features and Learning Curve
One other thing that’s really cool about this one is it’s got a kind of a padded backside on here. So, if you have trouble getting it in between your contacts—I’ve got some contacts that are really tight—you can put it in your mouth and then bite down on it to kind of push the floss past that contact point.
A word of caution that I would give you is the first time you use it, there’s definitely a little bit of a learning curve. If you have tight contacts and you’re used to the normal way of wrapping the floss and going in between, you’ve learned how to push hard enough to break that contact but not hard enough to gouge your gum tissue. And if you just go in there and bite down, you can definitely do some damage to that gum tissue in between the teeth. But, having said that, overall, it’s a pretty straightforward product. It’s very intuitive—you just go in between each of your contacts.
Time-Saving and Accessibility
Some of the things I found: it’s actually quicker for me. I was able to get in there and just go to town in between all my contacts, and it probably reduced my flossing by about half. So, if you’re someone that hates the dreaded two minutes in the morning getting up and flossing in between all your contacts, this is really great because it kind of eliminates the need to wrap it around your fingers.
It helps you get way back there. So, a lot of people have contacts in the back. When you’ve got the floss wrapped and you’re trying to get your fingers back there and trying to get back to those hard-to-reach areas, the tiny head and access of this actually makes it pretty easy. The first couple of times, I definitely recommend using it in front of a mirror so you can make sure you’re going where you need to go.
The whole advantage of flossing is that you can get in between the teeth, the contact area, which is basically where one tooth butts up against the other tooth. And having a good proper contact is absolutely important because it prevents food from packing. But even though you’ve got properly teeth contacting each other, you still need to floss in between those areas to clean out any debris that’s underneath that contact point.
Effectiveness and Comfort
The whole advantage of flossing is that you can get in between the teeth, the contact area, which is basically where one tooth butts up against the other tooth. And having a good proper contact is absolutely important because it prevents food from packing. But even though you’ve got properly teeth contacting each other, you still need to floss in between those areas to clean out any debris that’s underneath that contact point.
So, the conventional flossing method is you break the area between the two teeth, you go down, and then you kind of rub the sides of each tooth. And this allows you to do the exact same thing. So, you go in between the teeth, and you can kind of go on one side and the other side and come out.
Another word of caution: the first time you use it, you might have some areas that tend to trap floss. It can be a little concerning when you get it into space and have trouble getting it out. But the nice thing is I have some tricky contacts, and I was able to get it out with no problem. So, once you’ve kind of figured out the path of insertion, going in and out is a really straightforward process.
One of the advantages is I have patients that complain that they don’t like flossing conventionally because they feel like their hands are dirty, they feel like they get saliva over their fingers, they have a hard time getting back there, and this eliminates all those needs.
Additional Advantages
Flossing Your Back Teeth
it’s very easy to floss the front teeth because you can get access to it. But as you go further back in the back with the traditional finger-around-the-floss method, a lot of patients have a gag reflex that gets triggered because they’re sticking their hand way back in their mouth. The advantage of this is, it really is centrally located just over the teeth, so you don’t have a big mouthful. You don’t have that gagging experience.
The mechanical vibrations of the floss do a really good job of getting any debris, any kind of small bacteria, any kind of particles. They’re able to knock that loose, which is phenomenal. The whole point of flossing is you want to get in there and get that debris and get that plaque or any kind of buildup that your toothbrush can’t get to in between the teeth.
Ease of Use
The combination of the mechanical vibrations and the ease of use definitely provided an advantage to traditional flossing. I’m going to show you how easy this is to use. So activate it, you turn it on, you find it. Once you’ve got it on, put it in your mouth, just that easy. So it’s as simple as going in between the contacts. If you’re having trouble getting that force down, gently bite on this side, and you can push it in there. You clean in between the teeth and you pull it right out.
Acts as a Tongue Cleaner
One of the other advantages of this is it also doubles as a tongue cleaner. At the end of your cleaning, you can scrape your tongue because tongues, believe it or not, actually have really deep grooves and spaces in it that tend to trap food and bacteria. And so that’s a common source of bad breath. So this is an added bonus. After you floss, you should go right to town, clean the tongue off so it’s all in one kind of full mouth after-you-brush addition to your daily hygiene.
For me, I’ve got one contact in the back that my teeth are very tight, so when I try and floss a lot of times, I really have to push hard. This has been a huge saver for that. So you could see that initial force I had to kind of bite into it, but once you get it past there, it’s a very efficient job of cleaning. And then I pull that back out, and afterwards, I recommend scraping your tongue as well.
Maintenance and Lifespan
The lifespan on one of these is about a week, and most of the kits will come with replacements. As far as the actual floss goes, I like it. It’s unscented. It doesn’t have a taste or a texture to it. It’s very thin, and my guess would be if you contact any of these companies, they have different options for whether it’s digital tape, more of a waxed version. The two main companies that I’ve seen this are Slate and Floss.
As far as the maintenance and parts and pieces, the head of these is replaceable, and most kits come with multiple replacements. So after about a week, you want to switch out to a new floss head.
It’s a very easy process to pop this on and put the new one on. Some of the models are either rechargeable or come with an attachment that you plug into the wall. Some of them are just battery powered. So there’s lots of different options out there.
You may be asking yourself, why would I spend $80 to $120 on an electric flosser when I can just do it myself? That’s a great question. For me, I could tell a big difference in both the quality and the cleanliness of my teeth. And also, to be honest, it really motivated me to floss. And sometimes, I know we get in the daily habit of getting to work, of running late. If it’s the end of the night, we’re tired. A lot of times our flossing habits aren’t as ideal as we’d like them to be. And I really do feel with something like this, it will motivate me to floss more often, which is always a benefit.
So if you’re anything like me, sometimes it’s late at night, you’re tired, you don’t want to go through the whole rigmarole of flossing, I’m just going to floss a couple of teeth and go to bed. I have a lot of patients who admit they’re on the therapy chair that they only floss when they have something stuck between their teeth. Again, this is not ideal. So I’m not here to chastise you, but I want you to know with this product, I think you’ll definitely be able to increase the amount of flossing you do on a daily basis.
Final Recommendation
So here’s my recommendation. Absolutely add this to your daily armamentarium. I think in addition to an electric toothbrush, a nice fluoride mouthwash, an electric flosser is going to be a big-time game changer. And so I’m going to start recommending an electric flosser to all my patients, especially the older patients that have difficulty getting back there or have manual dexterity where they can’t really get the floss around their fingers. It’s a great product, and not only am I going to start using it, I’m going to start recommending it to my patients.
Would I recommend these wholeheartedly? Yes. Take a look at some of these links below. I’m not sponsored by anybody. I don’t get any reimbursements. I’m just a dentist who has found a product that I think will be beneficial for my patients’ health.
I’m Dr. Brett Langston. I’m here to help you watch your mouth.
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