HYDROGEN PEROXIDE AND THREE LEVELS OF CLEANLINESS IN BRUSHING YOUR TEETH
Using an unwashed toothbrush day after day is a serious lack of hygiene. If you only rinse off your toothbrush after bushing and then reuse it the next day, day after day, without ever cleaning your toothbrush, you are infecting your mouth every time you brush your teeth. Hydrogen peroxide is very inexpensive and destroys the bacteria (germs) found on toothbrushes, toothpaste does not. Hydrogen peroxide for brushing kills bacteria in and around gums and teeth, slows bone loss around teeth, helps prevent heart disease caused by dental bacteria.
In an effort to prevent lost sales from people preventing dental decay with hydrogen peroxide, some dentist say hydrogen peroxide can stain teeth. This can occur using the high concentration hydrogen peroxide found in dental offices and when using teeth whitening dental strips. The hydrogen peroxide sold in brown bottles in grocery stores rarely if ever stains teeth. (Label will say 3 or 3.5% hydrogen peroxide.)
Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2)First Level:
Clean Your Toothbrush Before Brushing
Everyone should do this every day.Wet your toothbrush, put a little liquid dish detergent (e.g. Dawn) on the brush part of the toothbrush. With the toothbrush handle in your hand, clean the brush part of the toothbrush by rubbing the brush with the thumb of the same hand you’re holding the toothbrush with. Next, rinse off the toothbrush while rubbing out the suds, food, germs, saliva, and other debris the detergent released. Notice the improved color of the brush. Make sure you clean and rinse the couple of inches of the handle near the brush. To see if you made a difference, clean your toothbrush this way again (right after the first toothbrush cleaning) and you’ll see a lot more suds because there’s little or no debris for the dish detergent to react with.
Second Level:
Sanitize Your Toothbrush With Hydrogen Peroxide
Everyone should do this every day.Where do these germs on your toothbrush come from? Most are bacteria that naturally live in your mouth and rubbed off onto your toothbrush. The rest are bacteria that float around by movement in your home, including fine spray from toilet flushing (according to ABCs 20/20).
Using a cleaned toothbrush, pour a little hydrogen peroxide on your toothbrush, wait 5 seconds or so, and then rinse it off with water. Hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizing agent and will kill the germs on the toothbrush.
Your toothbrush will usually start foaming within 7 or 8 seconds. The foam is caused by the breakdown of the hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen bubbles. The breakdown is caused by an enzyme on the toothbrush. The enzyme came from cells that were inside your mouth. When you brush your teeth, some cells from your mouth are left on the brush. When the toothbrush dries overnight, the cells on the toothbrush dry up and crack releasing the enzyme (catalase). A cut will foam up with hydrogen peroxide because a cut is literally cut open cells. If you mix saliva and hydrogen peroxide, it won’t foam up because there are few broken cells in fresh saliva. If you pour hydrogen peroxide on a new toothbrush, of course you won’t see any foaming.
If you’re one to dunk your toothbrush into the bottle of hydrogen peroxide instead of pouring the hydrogen peroxide onto your toothbrush, don’t leave your toothbrush in the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Plastic is pretty tough, but hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizing agent. There’s no telling what chemicals might form if the toothbrush is left in the hydrogen peroxide hour after hour, day after day.
Third Level:
Brush With Hydrogen Peroxide
For adults, after cleaning and sanitizing your toothbrush, pour a little hydrogen peroxide on the toothbrush and brush your teeth. Hydrogen peroxide kills the germs that cause gingivitis. Gingivitis is bacterial infection of the gums (gingival tissue). As infection develops gums swell and bleed. As infection worsens, symptoms worsen, including gums separating from teeth, receding gums, tooth decay, bone loss around teeth, etc. (Vitamin C deficiency also causes receding gums.)
Brush your front teeth with an up and down motion. Brush your side teeth with an up and down motion using the wrist movement used to play foosball (table soccer). You shouldn’t have hydrogen peroxide on your teeth for more than a couple of minutes, and rinse your mouth with water a couple of times when you’re finished brushing.
Hydrogen peroxide tastes terrible at first, but after about two weeks, it doesn’t have any taste at all. If you’re worried about the safety of brushing with hydrogen peroxide, in the government’s MedlinePlus encyclopedia, hydrogen peroxide is used as part of the treatment for trench mouth. Some dental products contain hydrogen peroxide. Many teeth whitening products contain high concentration hydrogen peroxide. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with brushing with toothpaste after brushing with hydrogen peroxide, but be certain not to use a hard bristle toothbrush.
Hydrogen Peroxide Trench Mouth (.gov)Hydrogen Peroxide Bleeding Gums (.gov)
Hydrogen Peroxide Inflamed Gums (.gov)
Dental plaque also contains bacteria and if not kept from forming, keeps the gums infected. Dental plaque is a clear, sticky mixture of mucus, food particles, and bacteria that forms on teeth. If dental plaque is not removed from teeth, it can turn white and harden (by the calcium of saliva) forming what is called tartar. Plaque can build up along the gum line (the gum-tooth line) and turn white before hardening, forming a soft while line along the gum line. When plaque hardens, it’s pretty hard to remove without a dentist, so remove it while it’s soft (easiest with an electric toothbrush) and keep it from ever forming. Don’t forget the gum line along the back of your teeth.
Fourth Level:
Hydrogen Peroxide
Below The Gum Line
Flossing with flossing string between your fingers helps remove sizable chunks of food from between teeth so germs supposedly have no food to live on, but what about small food particles? When is the last time you cleaned anything with a device shaped like taught string? Usually you use something which follows the contour of the surface you’re cleaning. Bacteria is much smaller than food particles so obviously flossing does almost nothing about removing existing bacteria in an around gums and teeth. Food particles being left behind after brushing is inevitable, but hydrogen peroxide will kill the bacteria living on the left behind food particles.
But even if you brush with hydrogen peroxide and floss, the gums between your teeth probably bleed when you floss, meaning that even with hydrogen peroxide and with what little traditional flossing does, plenty of bacteria is still present in and around your gums and teeth. Wherever gums bleed is where germs have infected the gums and destroyed cells in the gums causing the gums too bleed. When a dentist sees bleeding he’ll tell you, “You have gingivitis.”
For adults, here’s how to get to germs in and around gums and between gums and teeth. You don’t have to floss with flossing string between your fingers. Buy an electric flosser (or a bag of flossing picks - shaped like the letter P, about $3.00 for 90). Don’t buy a battery powered electric flosser (nor battery powered electric toothbrush). The rechargeable flossers work great. Sip about an ounce of hydrogen peroxide (without swallowing the hydrogen peroxide). The electric flosser has a little soft rubber tip that vibrates at a high speed creating a rubbing effect.
Pool the hydrogen peroxide above the lower gum line by holding your lower lip out a little. This will pool the hydrogen peroxide between teeth and gums. Floss between gums and teeth while the hydrogen peroxide is pooled between gums and teeth. (Floss on both sides of the triangular shaped gums between teeth.) Flossing rubs the gums and allows the hydrogen peroxide to better penetrate the gums and reach bacteria in the gums. Of course the electric flosser does a much better job rubbing the gums and removing plaque. Flossing with hydrogen peroxide like this 3 days in a row will remove most of the bacteria. After the first 3 days of flossing with hydrogen peroxide, flossing with hydrogen peroxide every four or five days will keep bacteria numbers low, low enough to prevent gums from bleeding when flossing. A little of your gums might actually turn white from the hydrogen peroxide and will return to pink in less than an hour. The white is where germ infection broke gum cells releasing the enzyme that causes hydrogen peroxide to foam. Brushing very hard can also break gum cells, and if brushing with hydrogen peroxide, gums will turn white where gum cells were broken.
For top teeth, sip about an ounce of hydrogen peroxide without swallowing any of the hydrogen peroxide. Next, force the hydrogen peroxide between the gums of the top teeth and the underside of the top lip (opposite side of where a mustache would or does grow), making the mustache area and upper cheeks pucker up. To do this, the top and bottom teeth are almost touching. Then bring your jaw down pulling the hydrogen peroxide between the top teeth. Repeat 7 or 8 times. This motion pushes hydrogen peroxide in below the gum line and draws food particle and germs out with the hydrogen peroxide. This motion also pulls food particles from between teeth in areas where a toothbrush can’t reach. There’s no real way to floss the upper teeth in a pool of hydrogen peroxide like lower teeth.
Avoid dental pain, bad teeth, and losing your teeth, brush with hydrogen peroxide. Brushing with hydrogen peroxide kills bacteria in and around teeth and gums, which stops or slows bone loss around teeth, and helps prevent heart disease caused by dental bacteria spreading to arteries. If you really don’t want to brush with hydrogen peroxide, at least wash and sanitize your toothbrush with hydrogen peroxide every day.
More Preventative Measures,
Dental Bacteria and Heart Disease
Page TwoRESPECT
I get no respect, no respect at all. I told my dentist my teeth are going yellow. He told me to wear a brown necktie.
