SANITIZING A TOOTHBRUSH

When it comes to keeping our personal belongings clean, I am sure most of us pay utmost importance to it, be it clothes, hairbrush, car, anything for that matter, but still, we all tend to miss out on cleaning something more important than all these, our toothbrush! Yes, have you ever felt the need for cleaning your toothbrush? By cleaning I do not mean to rinse it with water just to make sure that there is no toothpaste left on it, but what I mean is that have we ever thought about sanitizing it? About making it germ free?

Our toothbrush is a perfect breeding ground for germs. A single toothbrush can harbor millions of micro-organisms, which, if not got rid off in time, may convert into harmful bacteria that flourish in a warm and moist environment of any average bathroom. Now what we have never thought of before is that from where do these micro-organisms come? Most of them come from our own mouth, the oral cavity, which harbors millions of them! And to add to these millions, the rest come from the environment, in which we keep our toothbrush. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S.A., has stated that ‘Even after being rinsed visibly clean, toothbrushes can remain contaminated with potentially pathogenic organisms.’

Now knowing this, would you like to use the same toothbrush again the next morning? Maybe not, but, at the same time, you cannot keep changing your toothbrush every morning with a new one either to make sure that what you are using is clean. So now arises the need as to what can we do to make sure that the toothbrush we are using is free from the growth of bacteria, germs and viruses. There are various ways to do so to make sure that the toothbrush we are using is 95% free of micro-organisms, if not 100%. The following are some methods that we can adopt.

Firstly, instead of rinsing your toothbrush with normal water, you can use warm water for the same purpose as that provides more cleaning efficacy, but that alone cannot make your toothbrush germ free. So, another option is that you boil your toothbrush for five minutes as boiling kills most bacteria. The only harm is that your toothbrush may wear off early because of boiling. Another way out is that you wash your toothbrush with hydrogen peroxide, or immerse it in a diluted solution of hydrogen peroxide for some time. This tends to remove upto 95% bacteria from our toothbrush, but again, the problem is that how many of us will take the pain of getting hydrogen peroxide and forming a solution and then keeping the toothbrush immersed in it, and then rewashing it with water, because being a chemical, hydrogen peroxide too may result in wearing off of the toohthbrush.

Though now-a-days we have ultraviolet toothbrush sterilizers coming up in the market, and though ultraviolet radiation is an effective way of doing the same, I believe that what should be adopted in routine is something we can easily do at home. After a lot of reading, experimentation and references, I came to the conclusion that the best way to do the same is to immerse your toothbrush in a mouthwash liquid for 15-20 minutes. This too results in around 90-95% reduction in micro-organisms over your toothbrush, or, you can place your toothbrush in a microwave for 15 seconds. This too will make your toothbrush germ free.

 Be it immersing in a mouthwash liquid, using hydrogen peroxide, ultraviolet light, or a microwave, the choice is surely yours. All I suggest is that the next time you brush your teeth or clean your tongue, just make sure you are not using germs to fight germs. Happy brushing!