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Are toothpicks important?
Some dentists recommend anatomical (triangular) toothpicks, rather than floss. There are several reasons for
this. Many dentists feel that people are too lazy to use floss on a regular basis, and
feel that toothpicks are a reasonable substitute. Some patients have larger spaces between
their teeth, making them more suitable for using toothpicks, proxabrushes or the like.
The advantage of using non-scented toothpicks, particularly plastic ones, is that, similar
to floss, you can smell the toothpick between each passage and get a very good idea of the
places that are causing the odor. These are the places you want to clean most carefully.
One disadvantage of the toothpicks is that they cannot clean behind the last teeth in each
row, whereas floss can. Since usually the smell gets worse as you progress from the front
teeth working back, a lot of smelly bacteria can be hiding behind the last teeth,
particularly if the end tooth in the row is a wisdom tooth.
