The Toothbrushing Breakthrough

After twenty years or so of adult life I feel like I’ve finally cracked the whole ‘brushing your teeth’ thing. For context, my dad was obsessive about this; making us brush every morning and evening and take fluoride pills too. Brushing was almost a religion in our house. It was never missed.

But when I started taking responsibility for my own brushing it just drifted into nothingness. After all, my teeth don’t ever feel that dirty and I’ve never had a single problem with them. No fillings, no work, nothing. Every time I went to the dentist they’d say, ‘You’ve got no problems, but you should brush your teeth more often.’ More often than, for example, once every couple of months. For the sake of my gums, he would say. And I’d nod and agree, and then go home and just wouldn’t do it.

Photo from Flickr by William Warby. Creative Commons..

I hadn’t really realised that brushing is a sensory and executive function nightmare. Some autistic people (like my dad) are great at routines. Some are not. I’m awful. I have to keep to rather nebulous seeming routines; if I don’t get my after dinner cup of tea within about ten minutes of finishing my dinner, for example, something builds up in me that makes me want to jump out of my skin. But I find day-after-day self care routines oppressive, and terribly hard to stick to. So that, combined with the sensory hell of the brushing and the intense sting of the toothpaste, meant I would just never do it.

Then my husband got an electric toothbrush. I’ve always resisted electric toothbrushes. It seems like an unnecessary waste of energy. But – BUT BUT!! – I discovered a wonderful thing! It does all the thinking for you! I never realised my tooth brushing issues were to do with executive function, but I swear they are. How long do I brush for? Am I doing it right? Too long? Too short? Am I focussing on the right areas? Brushing hard enough? Softly enough? It doesn’t matter! This thing lets you brush one quarter of your mouth, doing all the work for you, and then it vibrates to tell you to move on to the next quarter. And so on, until it’s all done. I don’t have to worry about anything. The only sensory issue is getting over the vibration, which is not great, but I’m getting used to it, and it only goes on for a set amount of time. I’m now a toothbrushing queen! I brush every evening without fail. I’ve been doing it every night for about two months now. I haven’t missed a night. My teeth feel clean all the time.

And this, dear children, is why knowing you’re actually autistic is such a wonderful thing. Because it gives you context for why you fail at the simplest things, and helps you work out ways around it. And we all lived happily ever after. The End.