Tag: philips sonicare

The Best Electric Toothbrush

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Dental Revelations Blog-4586

I have known it. I have told you about it. Now there is evidence of it (again).

The Philips Sonicare is the ultimate electric toothbrush. There’s no way going around it. I have written a post about it before as well but I had to bring it up again because there is new evidence supporting my opinion.

The Journal of Clinical Dentistry has earlier this year published a study A Comparison of the Effect of Two Power Toothbrushes on the Reduction of Gingival Inflammation and Supragingival Plaque. You can find an abstract of the study here. If you read it through, you must by now wake up from the brainwashed illusion that any other toothbrush would be better. 

There is mainly two brands that can compete in the category of the best electric toothbrush – Philips and Braun Oral-b. That is why this study is significant. Of these two best manufacturers, Oral-b gets the short end of a stick I’m afraid.

Tried It, Didn’t Like It

So you gave the Philips Sonicare a go? Did it tickle like hell? Well that’s what it does in the beginning. There is an easy-start mode to reduce the tickling sensation in the beginning but I would advice to use it in full power as soon as possible. The tickling will diminish in 1-2 weeks. Just persevere.

Did you not get a clean feeling? There is certain technique to be used with the Sonicare toothbrush. Firstly, you should use a gel-like toothpaste and soak the brush head under running tap before you start brushing. This is because the sonic vibration needs liquids to travel to hard to reach places like in between the teeth and below the gum line. The gel-like toothpaste will dissolve quicker into water than pastes. If the mouth is too dry, the sonic vibration won’t work and this will result in poor cleaning result.

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Secondly, you need to stop brushing. Let the brush slide slowly over the gum line (where the tooth and gum meets) and point the bristles where you want the sonic vibration to reach. The gum line is the most important area to brush, but once you have done this you can point the bristles directly towards the surface of the tooth. This is a brilliant way of reducing staining. The brushing like this will take about 3 minutes.

Thirdly, do not press too hard. If you press too hard, you will loose the sonic vibration.

Fourthly, change your brush head every 4-6 months.

By following these advices, you should have a squeaky clean teeth.

For the dental professionals, who have seen poor results with their patients that are using Philips Sonicare – teach your patients to use it correctly.

Hard Evidence

I’ve seen the evidence with my patients that Philips Sonicare does it’s business. I use it myself and wouldn’t change to any other toothbrush. But to convince everyone else of the greatness of Philips Sonicare, I am happy that there is new evidence of it. Here’s a quote from the study:

Conclusions: The Philips Sonicare Diamond Clean Smart powered toothbrush reduced gingival inflammation, gingival bleeding, and supragingival plaque significantly more than the Oral-B Genius 8000 powered toothbrush following a 42-day home-use period.

How can you argue with that?

Read more:

Testing Oral-b Smart Phone Holder, Take 2

Testing Oral-b Smart Phone Holder, Take 1

Superiority of the Philips Sonicare Toothbrush

Recommendations, Advice, Tips You Can Rely on

Christmas Came Early

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Philips Sonicare forever!

I got bribed today. Big time. Remember the representative who got to the wrong side of me? If not, visit here to read the story before you continue further.

I said she was not going to visit our practice if it was up to me. Well, turns out it wasn’t up to me. The others wanted her to come. We had run out of toothpaste samples because the toothpaste manufacturers have started to be rather stingy recently. Perhaps the economic depression has hit them as well? I have noticed this phenomenon also at the dental show cases. Couple of years ago you could get lots of freebies but this year you needed to fill in a questionnaire or a competition to receive one travel sized tube of toothpaste. I didn’t bother.

Anyway, I was not looking forward to this rep coming to our practice as the previous meeting did not go that well. And when she came in, I realised she thought so as well.

First she complemented me about my looks. She did not compliment anybody else. And for your information I do not look like Snow White and the rest of the staff like the seven Dwarfs. So my interpretation of this was that she was trying to break the ice.

Then she began the presentation. Having learned my lesson last time I only listened and did not ask anything. I replied if she asked me a question.

I must say the new electric toothbrush she was demoing to us was quite impressive. It was up-to-date with the smart phone application and the position detection. The only questionable feature was the smart phone holder. It has a suction cup that is supposed to hold my 700+＄smart phone at the hight of my face. I dared to ask about it and the rep said it will hold any smart phone as long as the surface is smooth and clean (should be preferably wiped with alcohol prior attaching the holder to the tiles or a mirror – but still I would not attach my smart phone to the holder).

Then she moved on to the toothpastes. Oh dear god how many different kinds of toothpastes they had. Too many in my opinion. The professionals won’t remember which one was for which problem and the patients will be even more confused – like one of my patient said to me

“I went to look for the sensitive one but couldn’t find it anymore. Instead there was so many new ones that I did not buy anything.”

Turns out that they have discontinued the sensitive one. Why didn’t they stick to the one that was supposed to deal with all the problems in mouth?

Then she gave us samples of one of the new toothpastes. She wanted us to try it out and report to her what we thought about it. Naturally she praised the toothpaste while I was browsing through the ingredients. Zinc lactate! Zinc in toothpastes can cause dry mouth. I felt the urge to mention it but remembered our last meeting when I did so. So I stayed silent.

But then came the grande finale. She took out the new, top of the line electric toothbrush and handed it to me with words

“I’m afraid I have only one of these to give out and I thought that it should be you.”

I felt the others staring at me in disbelief but all I could do was to look at the shiny and sleek black packaging she was handing to me. And without hesitation I accepted the gift.

Now, I am not sure what all of this meant. Was she trying to make up the last encounter? Or was she trying to convert me? Could she remember out of hundreds of customers that I am THE ONE not using their toothbrush? That would be scary.

If she tried to convert me, she could not have picked a worse target. I may accept gifts, try them out as expected but I cannot be bribed. I doubt there will ever be better electric toothbrush than my beloved Philips Sonicare.

Superiority of the Philips Sonicare Toothbrush

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Philips Sonicare forever!

I used to be brainwashed by one of the biggest electric toothbrush manufacturers and thought that there is no better toothbrush than these round-headed ones. I was so stuck in this illusion that I didn’t even give another toothbrush a chance to be better.

But then I moved to another country where two of the biggest toothbrush brands were almost equally popular compared to my country of origin where this manufacturer with round-headed toothbrush was and is dominating the markets.

In my new country of residence I was offered a free trial of the Philips Sonicare. I was amused by the looks of it (it was the old model) and thought it wouldn’t be a very good toothbrush. I almost declined the free trial because I was so convinced about the superiority of this round-headed toothbrush.

But then I gave it a go. It was ticklish as hell at first but thankfully my colleague dentist had warned me about it. I carried on using it for the full two minutes. Once I was done I got my moment of awakening.  My teeth had never felt better. So smooth, so clean.

Patient Case

I was treating a lady – lets call her Sue – at her early twenties for severe gum disease. She had already had periodontist treatment and understood the severity of the situation considering her young age. Sue was very motivated to look after her teeth and did everything she was advised to do.

Sue had a surface retained glass fibre reinforced periodontal splints (everStick®PERIO) on her lower and upper teeth. She was using Tepe interdental brushes of various sizes twice a day and an electric toothbrush – the round head one. She changed the brush heads every month (even though she was informed it was necessary every 3 months). Her brushing technique was checked many times and it was perfect.

But every time I saw Sue for the 4-monthly scale and polish she had supragingival (visible) calculus on her lower front teeth. Lots of it. And she started to be very distressed about it because she was doing all the right things to prevent it. I tried to ease her worry and told that the supragingival calculus was not a problem gum wise as long as it was removed regularly. And in her case the gum didn’t even get inflamed by the presence of supragingival calculus. But it did not calm her mind. She didn’t like the looks of it as it was clearly visible when she smiled.

I had no idea what to advice more than I already had. She had all the right tools – interdental brushes and a latest model of an electric toothbrush. She used them often enough and with a correct technique.

Then I thought about Philips Sonicare I was using. I suggested to Sue that she could change her toothbrush. I expressed my frustration over the fact that she had spent quite a lot of money for the current toothbrush but this was all I could think of that might help her. I showed her the correct technique of the Sonicare just in case she followed my advice.20181104_152933.jpg

Next time Sue came in she had a wide smile on her face when she entered my surgery. She said the calculus had not built up at all! Sue had gone straight to the shop after the last visit and bought the Philips Sonicare toothbrush. She was very happy and thankful for the advice I had given.

This was even more of an eye opener for me than my own first experience with Philips Sonicare.

Why Is It Better?

The name says it all. It’s because of the sonic vibration. When used correctly the sonic vibration can reach beyond the bristles as the sonic vibration travels through the liquids in mouth.

People who think Sonicare is not a good toothbrush have not used it with a correct technique.

I have noticed in the past 15 years of using the Sonicare that I and my patients who us it, get less stains. Hardly any even though I drink coffee and tea.

Conclusion

In my country where I live and work now, the Philips Sonicare toothbrush is not very widely used or recommended by the dental professionals. I am considered as odd one out when I tell I use one. And even stranger it seems that I recommend it to some of my patients. Almost as if I didn’t know my business.

In the dental show case I didn’t even find a representative of Philips Sonicare from any stands. And I cannot find any contact details for a rep to invite her to my practice or to express my views over their marketing strategy. You see the marketing is very poor compared to their competitor who has given trial models to my practise with disposable brush heads so that the patient can be shown the correct technique etc. They give out free electric toothbrushes to the professionals (I have written about it on my previous post) and visit practices regularly to promote their products.

But thankfully the Philips Sonicare toothbrush is available in the shops. And I am doing a small-scale marketing for them. My hope is that they would take more aggressive approach to the almost non-existing marketing. I could even go to the next show case as their representative just to annoy the rep of their competitor who told me that the Philips Sonicare is as effective as manual toothbrush (you can read about it here).

It would definitely make my work easier when convincing the patients about the superiority of the Philips Sonicare toothbrush. And perhaps my colleagues will start to recommend it too.

Here are couple of models of Philips Sonicare electric toothbrush:

Basic model with 31000 brushstrokes per minute (don’t buy anything lower than 31000)

The flagship model with 31000 brushstrokes per minute