How Your Toothbrush Can Spread The Flu

October 28, 2009

Interview with Dr. Doyle Williams Chief Dental Officer for Delta Dental.

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Mike Carruthers:

In an attempt to stop the spread of cold and flu germs in your house, don’t neglect your toothbrush. Particularly if someone in the house is already sick. For instance…

Dr. Doyle Williams:

If you use a communal tube of toothpaste - you put that toothpaste on and you touch the bristles you put it on so you’ve re-contaminated the whole tube of toothpaste.
 

Dentist Dr. Doyle Williams Chief Dental Officer for Delta Dental Insurance says, instead…

Wash your hands first, squirt the toothpaste on your finger and transfer it to your brush from your finger. Or even buy those little travel sizes and let the sick person use that tube.

And if you are the one who’s already sick, Dr. Williams says remember…

You actually can get re-infected with your own germs. So it would make the flu process last longer because the germs can live on the toothbrush for a while. So there are some real easy things you can do to safely sanitize your toothbrush on a daily basis.

One way is to simply microwave a manual toothbrush for one minute.

If you use one of the power toothbrushes then you’ll probably notice that there’s a metal ring on it so if you put it in the microwave you’ll get some sparks. So you’d want to submerge that completely in water and boil it for three minutes. Any kind of toothbrush you can put in the dishwasher and your dishwasher is about the closest thing to a hospital sterilizer that we have in the house.

To hear the complete unedited interview click here.