Good oral care involves ensuring the cleanliness of your oral hygiene instruments as well as cleaning your teeth and gums. You should keep your toothpaste, toothbrush, tongue scrapers, oral irrigators, and other cleaning accessories in a sterile environment. In simply, storing your dental cleaning kit in a right place is paramount to boost your dental hygiene routine.
Miserably, many people keep their dental care tools in bathrooms near the toilet basin. As most people feel comfortable brushing, defecate and showering once they go to the washroom, they tend to store their teeth cleaning appliances there.
If you are one of those people, this article is for you, my friend. You should not keep your toothbrush in your restroom. Keep reading to get the reason.
Is it bad to keep my toothbrush in the bathroom?
Keeping your toothbrush in the bathroom is troublesome if you place it near the toilet bowl. It is a common problem in small space attached bathrooms. Right? Similarly, you should not brush your teeth where you flush.
This is because when you flush, the contents in the toilet basin will splash around the bathroom and drench the things you kept there. Remember that when you flush a toilet bowl without the lid cover, the bacteria, germs, and fungi dispersed can fly higher than 25.5 cm. Now the toothbrush is exposed to the airborne dispersal of particles (toilet plume) in the washroom and microbes like E. coli, fecal bacteria, norovirus, salmonella, shigella carried by it.
It means your toothbrush has become a habitat of harmful microorganisms in feces. Apparently, you are infusing those pathogens into your body while brushing. Even though the body’s immune system neutralizes the microbes to a great extent, the bacteria and germs in your toothbrush will provoke various oral disorders and health problems over time.
If you share a washroom with others, the contamination is more horrible. the bacteria from other excretions also enter your mouth through the toothbrush.
What are the other places you should not store your toothbrush?
Rather than saying the wrong places to store your toothbrush, these are the common mistakes in keeping a toothbrush:
- Placing a toothbrush someplace close to the toilet bowl. You should keep your toothbrush at least 6 feet faraway from the commode.
- Keeping the toothbrush in a stand where others’ toothbrushes are held. It is commonly run in families. When the toothbrush heads touch together, bacteria transmission occurs.
- Storing the toothbrush in a medicine cabinet. The humid environment in the cabinet allows the bacteria in the toothbrush to thrive.
- Placing the toothbrush near the sink.
You should keep your toothbrush upright once you wash it after brushing. Likewise, let it dry and cover the brush head with a lid. Don’t forget to wash the toothbrush caps daily.
Bottom line
Remember that a toothbrush can hold up to 10 million pathogens if it is not maintained properly. Hence oral hygienists suggest everyone should be careful about cleaning & storing the toothbrush. This is why we advise you to place the dental hygiene appliances far away from the washroom.
Nowadays, you have a variety of appliances like toothbrush sanitizers to kill bacteria in the toothbrush. Similarly, soaking your toothbrush in an antiseptic mouthwash or hydrogen peroxide for a few minutes also kills the bacteria and ensures the appliance’s sanitation.
