Piksters
This series of videos goes through the 3 must-have tools to do the best job of cleaning your teeth with this one discussing piksters!
Part 3 - Pikster - Interdental brushes
Tool 3: Piksters or Interdental Brushes / How to use Piksters - tooth piksters
Part 3 Video 1: When would I need to use piksters or interdental brush?
Part 3 Video 2: How to use a Pikster brush!
How to use Piksters / Interdental Brushes
The following video series discusses the dental pikster and will teach you how to use piksters or interdental brushes. Dental piksters are a small handle with a bottlebrush on it. Dental piksters are generally used as an alternative to flossing and provide the benefit of being very gentle on cosmetic restorations such as dental crowns or dental implants. As most things, there is a technique to how to use piksters and Dr Carla through the videos gives patients both a good idea of what piksters are and how to use piksters, whilst offering a few tips and tricks.
Another important topic are pikster sizes. The pikster sizes themselves are quite varied with ultra small to quite large. We discuss why this is the case and what will be the best for your situation. Piksters are a great alternative to floss for those who don't like or enjoy flossing. Piksters are easy to use and are very gentle.. lets delve into the details.
Descriptions and Transcripts
How to use Piksters or interdental brushes
How to use piksters part 3 video 1
Tools for Teeth Cleaning Series Video 3 Part 1 - Piksters
Piksters
Tools for Teeth CLeaning Series by Doctor Carla
Part 3 Piksters also known as Interdental Brushes - dental piksters - how to use piksters - tooth piksters
Transcript: Hi guys, Welcome to part 3 of our 3 part series on the best tools to keep your teeth clean. If you haven't checked out part 1, that was on tooth brushing... go check it out, and part 2 was on flossing.. have a look at that as well. Part 3 is on interdental brushes or dental piksters and how to use piksters.
Intro
What are interdental brushes or dental piksters / tooth piksters? A pikster is a little kind of bottle brush that we can use to clean between our teeth. Just like floss, they are a tool for cleaning between our teeth, which is a very difficult to reach area for the tooth brush.
Who would benefit from using interdental brushes/ piksters? What is better interdental brush/ piksters vs floss?
Piksters or interdental brushes are really great tools for lots of people. for example if you have a dental implant... piksters are best thing to use to clean between your tooth that has the implant. The reason for that, if you check out part 2 on flossing, is that if you floss around your implant, the little fibers from the floss can actually dislodge.. get stuck in the gum and cause inflammation around your implant. So, with respect to piksters / interdental brushes vs floss, the safest thing to use to clean around an implant is an pikster /interdental brush. If you have an implant they are great to use.
Another benefit to using piksters in the interdental brush/piksters vs floss argument is if you have a dental bridge, which is where two teeth or more are connected, and the floss can't actually go between the teeth. In this case the interdental brush/ piksters are the perfect little toot to get in between and around your bridge.
If you have an implant... if you have a bridge... tooth piksters are great.
A third argument for dental piksters in the interdental brush/piksters vs floss argument is if you are someone who often gets food stuck between your teeth and the floss just doesn't get it out. In this case, piksters /interdental brushes are great for you as well. The dental piksters are a lot broader than floss.. and the little bristles on the piksters can spread out into all the little grooves and little irregularities in the sides of the teeth and clean out any plaque or food that is getting stuck between your teeth.
To summarise the interdental brush/piksters vs floss question
if you have an implant, dental piksters are great.
if you have a bridge, dental piksters again are great.
if food is getting stuck, dental piksters are the choice.
Also if you are someone who has experienced lots of fillings that have gone between your teeth... piksters / interdental brushes are also great for you. The reason for that is anywhere where you have a filling that goes between your tooth, that join line where the filling meets the tooth is never going to be completely smooth. There's always going to be a tiny little seam in there. The floss will just skip over that seam. Whereas the little brushes on the piksters interdental brush will get right in there. I'll show you a little technique that going to prevent you getting anymore cavities between your teeth.
Lastly, piksters /interdental brushes are great for people who have gum disease.. which is known as periodontal disease or disease of the supporting structures of the teeth. The reason for that is that often when you have gum disease, the floss does not adequately clean the large space that is created between the teeth.. because again, floss is very thin, and is a great tool if your gums are nice and healthy. If your gums however, have been affected by gum disease, and the attachment of your gum to your tooth is not nice and tight anymore and you end up with larger gaps between your teeth, then these little pister brushes come in all shapes and piksters sizes.
These piksters sizes here are quite small (Dr Carla shows the piksters sizes where there are clear differences). The piksters sizes here is a bit bigger (again Dr Carla shows the piksters sizes - there are many different piksters sizes and this is the visual point demonstrated here). You can get different piksters sizes that suit exactly the size between your teeth. When you have experienced gum disease, and there is more of your tooth exposed, so more of a surface area between your tooth... its really important that you are able to clean off all that plaque because as we found out in parts 1 and part 2, plaque is what causes cavities in between your teeth and plaque is also what makes the gum disease not get better. So the more plaque you can remove, the better off your mouth is going to be.
How to use piksters part 3 video 2
Tools for Teeth Cleaning Series Video 3 Part 2 - Pikster
How to use Piksters
Tools for Teeth Cleaning Series by Doctor Carla
Part 3 Interdental Brushes/ Piksters, Part 2 How to use Piksters
Transcript:
How do you use piksters or a pikster interdental brush?
The idea is that you want the pikster to go between the teeth. The angle that you put the dental pikster in is the same angle that you would use for a toothpick. At the front, we go straight on. As we go around, it gets more horizontal (text: Same angle as a toothpick). Don't try and get your back teeth like this (Dr Carla shows the incorrect technique of holding the piksters / interdental brush straight on for side teeth). You want to bring it (pikster) right around (more horizontally) to the side.
The key things to using piksters or interdental brushes are that the wire is very thin, so if it's not going.. don't force it, just adjust your angle (text: Adjust angle if it's not going in). Normally that's how to get piksters further back. Once it's in you can give it a little jiggle around.
What you don't want to do is to force the dental piksters if it's too large a brush for your gap or if it's just not working out. The other thing that you can do is for the back teeth, you can bend the pikster brush a little bit so it's on an angle like this (close to perpendicular). This makes it easier to get the pikster into your back teeth.
A really great tip for you if you are someone who experiences lots of cavities between your teeth, or if you have a lot of fillings in between your teeth, or if you are someone who is experiencing reflux.. especially while you are sleeping and your teeth are very vulnerable to getting cavities, especially between your teeth if you have reflux, because the acid just sits in that little crevice between your teeth and the teeth are quite vulnerable overnight, is to dip your little piksters /interdental brush into a fluoride containing substance such as your toothpaste, or this product here, which is fantastic... it's called Tooth Mousse. This product isn't just with fluoride, which is one of the main components of making your teeth more resistant to plaque and acid and cavities, but this also the other building blocks of the tooth, such as calcium and phosphate in a very available form for your teeth to absorb. So if you dip your pikster brush in the Tooth Mousse and put it in between your teeth, then your teeth are even more protected than rather with just using toothpaste alone. What you can do, is just put a little bit on your hand, and then just dip the piksters in, then just smear it around and leave it on to absorb.
This is a technique I use every night on myself. I have an area between my 2 back teeth which
is a constant source of food getting stuck in there. There is no decay... yet, but that is vulnerable because the food is always getting stuck there during the day, and I know this. I want to protect that area because I don't want to get a cavity there because I don't want to have to get a filling later on. What I do, is I put some Tooth Mousse on to my pikster brush, and I get in there, and I just do it every night. That way I know I'm protecting that tooth.
You used your little pikster interdental brush, so now what do you do to look after the little piksters?
Piksters are reusable.. if you have any little bends or kinks in the wire.. then discard it, because when you bend the wire the piksters become weaker. So if you had trouble putting it in somewhere or your piksters are kind of a bit bent, it's time for a new one. Also if you get lots of plaque or there is a lot of food of debris on your pikster brush, then again, you don't want that to harbor, or grow more bacteria, so if that's the case.. chuck it away and get a new one. If you have no sort of bleeding or when you do use the pikster brush there isn't a lot of plaque, then you can reuse it. Give it a really good clean under running water, and you want to let it dry completely between reusing it again... because any surface that is kept constantly moist, will be a source of lots of bacterial growth. You don't want to be reintroducing bugs back into your mouth that you are trying to keep clean and remove the bugs from.
That's piksters - how to use piksters
Alright guys, so that concludes the third part of our 3 part series on the tools that you can use to keep your teeth nice and clean and effective at removing plaque - piksters / interdental brushes. I hope that if you hadn't heard of interdental brushes or piksters before, that now you've got another tool in your tool kit to keeping everything nice and clean, and now also know how to use piksters. If you were already using them but you might have come across a couple more tips to make your experience with piksters more effective.
Thanks for watching our video on piksters and go check out the other 2 videos on flossing and toothbrushing if you haven't already. Dentista Dental Centre - how to use piksters. You can buy piksters at most supermarkets or chemists.