Dental Hygiene

How to Use a Water Pick

Since the winter holidays are upon us, I felt it appropriate to write a bit about one of the things I’m asking for on my own list. Normally, I’ll just ask for clothes or things I could use around the house to make cleaning or cooking easier. But this year I decided to take a slightly different approach and ask for things related to my health.

What better way to get your health back on track than asking for specific tools and products you could use to better your general health? This year I’m starting out slow and just asking for a single item related to health, but that item is a water pick. Considering that dental problems can cause a lot of other issues to happen all because you didn’t brush your teeth well enough in the recent past, it felt right to start with something that can help with so many of my dental issues.

The good thing is that most dental issues are reversible, even if they get pretty bad. The bad thing is that it can hurt, cause you to have to spend a lot of money, and even damage other parts of your body if you’re not careful. So, I wanted to get ahead of the game by finding something I could use at home to combat gingivitis. Since gingivitis is luckily reversible, I wanted to tackle it at home as best I could while also seeking the advice of my dentist each time I go in for a cleaning.

If you’re also new to using a water pick, here are a few tips on using it. (I myself haven’t even used one yet, this is just the research I’ve done on it!)

Make sure the reservoir is filled.

This is needed since the device actually sprays water at your gumline at high pressures, so of course it’ll need filled before using it. Otherwise you can’t really use it!

Start out easy.

Just like anything new, you don’t want to overdo it. Since your mouth is likely accustomed to bleeding, you don’t want your mouth to bleed even more because you used such a high pressure setting that it cuts into your gums. Just start slow and you can increase the pressure setting as time goes on.

Close your mouth over the pick some.

This helps to avoid water splashing everywhere, but don’t envelop the water pick with your lips or you’re doing something wrong.

Focus on the gums.

When you aim at your gumline, you know you’re doing it right. By aiming directly at them, you can slowly reverse the gum disease that has set in under your gum line. This is the best part of this device.