Does A Water Floss Make A Difference?

When it comes to dental hygiene at home, the most comprehensive protection you can give your teeth, as any good dentist will tell you, is a combination of brushing and flossing. You need to brush your teeth in order to remove the layer of plaque that builds up on the surface of your enamel, and you need to use dental floss to achieve the same thing in the hard to reach spaces between your teeth and gums and a toothbrush can’t reach.

But in recent years, the water floss—which has actually been around for decades—has become more and more popular. But does it actually work?

How A Water Flosser Works

When you use dental floss, you are using a mechanical, physical action that takes the floss and literally scrapes the narrow surfaces between teeth and in gums. When done with the proper technique and care, there is literally no better way to remove plaque from these very difficult to reach spaces. Of course, using floss takes practice and some people find it both very difficult and time consuming.

A water floss on the other hand, is a very different process. A high pressure stream of water is shot into your mouth, similar to the way that pressure hoses are used to clean cars or walls. Because this is water, it is very thin, and can reach the spaces between your teeth and your gums that a toothbrush can’t. And because the water is propelled at high pressure, it can actually be quite effective at cleaning out these spaces of plaque and other foreign matter that may be attaching itself to your teeth.

Good, But Not Better

In a perfect world, if you have the time and patience, the best way to care for your teeth is to use a toothbrush, a water floss, and use dental floss, for maximum protection. However, if you have to choose between only dental floss or only a water floss, the dental floss still offers better overall cleaning power for your teeth.

That does not mean, however, that a water floss is bad. A water flosser is, in fact, still a very effective means of cleaning your teeth, it’s just not quite as good as using traditional dental floss properly. But in cases where you may have an easier time using a water flosser than dental floss, using only a toothbrush and then following up with a water flosser is a huge improvement over just brushing your teeth alone.

You’ll still get superior dental protection from using dental floss correctly, but a water floss device is still great substitute if you don’t like using normal floss.