Rotary electric toothbrushes, also known as oscillating toothbrushes, have become increasingly popular over the last few decades. The design of rotary toothbrushes with their rotating bristles offers some unique benefits over a traditional toothbrush and can help take care of the hard-to-reach plaque on your teeth between professional dental cleanings.

What is a rotary toothbrush?

Rotary toothbrushes are different than sonic toothbrushes, which started to become popular in the early 1990s. Sonic toothbrushes work by sending out sonic vibrations that help break up plaque and clean the teeth with a secondary vibration method in addition to the conventional bristle tooth scrubbing.

Rotary toothbrushes work by oscillating their brush bristles in a circular pattern around the brush head, either back and forth or in a continuous single direction. Some models brush back and forth at a rate of as much as 8,800 brush strokes per minute, which can be much more effective at scrubbing tooth surfaces to remove dental plaque than manual brushing.

Some studies have shown that oscillating or rotating toothbrushes work better than vibrating toothbrushes, and can reduce plaque by 21 percent and gingivitis by 11 percent after 3 months of use.

Why use a rotary toothbrush?

The smaller brush size.

Rotary toothbrush heads are typically smaller than a traditional toothbrush. The reason is that they are designed to allow you to clean individual teeth one at a time, which can make plaque removal more effective since we don’t often spend time on each tooth with a manual brush.

The bristle speed.

Because the bristles of a rotary toothbrush move much faster than we are able to brush back and forth manually with a traditional toothbrush, rotary toothbrushes can be much more effective at scrubbing and polishing plaque from the teeth.

The built-in timer.

Most of us don’t brush our teeth as long as we’re supposed to. Many electric rotary toothbrush models are built with a timer so you can actually make sure you are brushing your teeth for the dentist-recommended length of time — about 2 minutes.

Easier for people with limited mobility.

Rotary toothbrushes do a lot of the work of teeth brushing for you, which can be helpful for people that have limited mobility from conditions like arthritis or carpal tunnel.

Try a rotary toothbrush today

Oral-B rotary toothbrushes are available in our office for $99, which includes 4 replacement brush heads. Stop in today to learn more and pick one up.