This kind of comes under the same title as recession but I have seen some pretty extreme cases of this over the years through the wrong toothbrushing technique so I’m going to go over a few toothbrushing points. Here is a pretty good picture of what over brushing usually looks like just in case this is happening in your mouth right now.

Sometimes people get REALLY excited when they’re brushing their teeth, I mean really excited. They brush a certain area too hard, or for too long, or too frequently and over time we start to see the enamel and dentine wear away, so much so in some cases its like a little notch has been carved out of the tooth.

Catching this early and correcting the tooth brushing technique is key here, I always say treat your gums like you’ve taken them to a spa, massage them with the toothbrush, and don’t clean them like you’re cleaning the step at the back door.

Just like recession, a soft brush like my fav Curaprox 5460* brush or a an electric toothbrush like the Oral B Genius 9000* with a pressure sensor are the best was to

a) Prevent overbrushing in the first place

b) Successfully remove plaque from areas that have been already over brushed without loosing any more tooth tissue.

Usually I find an electric toothbrush with a pressure sensor is best for you over brushers, because its not just the tool for the job we need to change but the habit too.

It is important to mention though that brushing your teeth with an electric toothbrush isn’t really like brushing your teeth with a manual toothbrush and no one ever tells you this, I always say to people its like driving a car with no driving licence. You can just buy one and start doing whatever the hell you like with it. Basically we want to let the tooth brush do the work for us - after all that’s why we’ve paid so much money for it compared to a regular brush - all we really need to worry about are position and angulation. Like using a regular toothbrush we want to be angling 45 degrees towards the gum line, with feather light pressure and let the toothbrush glide over the teeth and gums letting the toothbrush sweep away the plaque. Perfect.

Sometimes with over brushers I see areas of over brushing and areas that are completely missed out altogether, with people visiting the same areas of their mouth a few times when brushing eg top left cheek side and forgetting about all the areas tongue side. The best way to avoid this is to be systematic with your brushing

Divide your mouth into 4 sections
Spend about 30 seconds on each section
10 seconds on the areas closest to your lips and cheeks
10 seconds on the biting surfaces of your teeth
10 seconds on the areas closest to tongue/palate
Repeat for the other quarters of your mouth

This is a pretty fool proof way of making sure all of your teeth are brushed goldilocks style, not too much, not too little, but just right. I’m aware its cheesy you’ve just gotta let me have it. I’ve added a demo video here of the correct way to use an electric toothbrush. In the video I’m using the Curaprox Hydrosonic Toothbrush* but the technique works for pretty much any electric toothbrush you have.

Tooth coloured filling material used to treat overbrushing.

Often, we see overbrushing not overly from a bad toothbrushing technique, but from brushing your teeth too many times. If there ever was a time for quality of quantity my friends, this would be it. All we really need a day are TWO GOOD BRUSHES and by good I mean follow the techniques I’ve shown above in the videos, plus ideally some cleaning in between your teeth with either interdental brushes, floss or a water flosser, with a fluoride toothpaste, once before you go to bed, whenever that may be, but usually at night and then at one other occasion throughout the day. Wow that was a long sentence, apologies. If you would like a little freshen up throughout the day or after meals, an alcohol free fluoride mouthwash is best for this. Brushing your teeth on the hour every hour might help your mouth feel nice and fresh but will absolutely lead to overbrushing.

Some of my patients who have Gum Disease are real over brushers, most of them reported to me that their teeth never felt clean or that they felt, or someone had said to them, that their breath was bad, so they were constantly brushing their teeth.

Smokers and tea/coffee/red wine lovers also can spend hours and hours trying to brush away staining that just wont come off with a toothbrush. If you feel that your teeth aren’t clean speak to your Dental Hygienist or Dentist, could be that your technique needs tweaked, could be that your teeth need a professional clean, could be something more.

Once overbrushing has occurred we can treat it fairly easily, what most of you will most likely be experiencing is sensitivity or maybe you’re not keen on your new look, either way placing some tooth coloured material over the areas that have work away is a good way to manage both of these complaints. You can also manage sensitivity, as we did with recession, with a sensitive toothpaste like Colgate Sensitive Pro Relief*.

Thankyou so much for reading, hopefully this answered any questions you had about over brushing and gave you a few tips of toothbrushing techniques. Remember there are four main kinds of tooth wear and each one doesn’t usually happen alone so make sure to check out my other tooth wear blogs on acid erosion, recession and attrition.

*gifted products