Product Review: Waterpik Dental Waterjet

I, for one, HATE to floss! And every time I go to the dentist I get the speech about flossing. I am really good for 2-3-4 or even 6 months and then I fall off the wagon again. I just hate to floss and I find it impossible to work it into my daily routine. How does this relate to being a new mom? Well, if you are like me and you already hate to floss, then throw having a new baby (or a baby and a toddler) into the mix and all of a sudden you have a recipe for disaster – flossing falls to the bottom of the list of important things to do.

I was so excited when my Dental Water Jet arrived! I took it out of the box and set it up and my son and I tried it out. We had a great time with it – and my bathroom soon looked like it was located near a waterfall. This was caused partly by a learning curve and partly by what happens when using a waterjet with a four-year-old. I have to admit, it took me a good month of using the waterjet to get used to using it and to really like it. When I first started using it, I sprayed water everywhere almost every time I used it and I really wasn’t too fond of it. But now that I have been using it for a few months and I have learned to work around its quirks and my quirks, I really, really love this gadget!!

How you use it:

To use the Waterpik Dental Water Jet, you put on the appropriate attachment, fill up the reservoir with water (or mouthwash) and aim the water at your gum line. You can control how hard the water sprays. There is a button on the handle which you press to STOP the flow of water. It took me a long time to get used to this at first because I am used to an electric toothbrush which you press to turn on and then press to turn off. With the waterpik you have to press and HOLD to stop the spray and I was constantly forgetting to “hold” it. Now that I am used to using it, it is like second nature, but it take me a while to get used to it. The instructions say to empty the water reservoir after each use – which I don’t do. It needs to be refilled after about 3 uses, so I just leave the water in it and empty and rinse it out when it needs more water. The instructions also say to let the flow of water just drain out of your mouth as you are rinsing your gums, but I found that to be too messy – so I close my mouth and hold the water in until my mouth is full and then stop the jet and spit the water out and continue – repeating until I am done. I can tell it is working (sorry this may be TMI) because I can see “particles” coming out with the water that weren’t removed with my toothbrush. So it is definitely more effective than just brushing alone would be.

What I like about this product:

• I love the fact that I don’t have to floss anymore. Now the jury is still out on this one – because until I go to my dentist (in February) and she tells me that my gums look great or at least better than they did the last time I was in, I won’t know for sure if this claim is true – but if you read the literature – it appears that the Dental Water Jet is at least as effective at flossing. And for me – it is more effective (see the next bullet to find out why)
• I actually use this devise! For me this is probably the most important thing – since I never flossed regularly and even when I did – it was a constant struggle to remember to do it and I hated every minute of it. With the Waterpik Dental Jet – I use it every day, sometimes twice a day and I really don’t mind using it. I have easily fit it into my routine.
• My son loves using it! Flossing a 4 year-olds teeth is not very much fun – but using a Dental Water Jet is an adventure every time – he loves it, I have fun doing it and as long as the bathroom isn’t covered in water at the end – it’s a great time for everyone.
• There are lots of different attachments – so no matter what your problem area is – there is something for you – a regular water jet, a tongue cleaner, a toothbrush, an attachment for use with braces and even an attachment for getting into deep areas or areas that have had significant dental work. This is great for me because I have a tooth that is an implant and I really want to make sure it gets cleaned well.

Things that I would change about this system:

• The toothbrush doesn’t vibrate. As mentioned above this system contains a toothbrush attachment. When I first received it, I thought this would be the attachment that I used the most – since I could accomplish two tasks at once – brushing and flossing. But for me, this didn’t work out. I regularly use an electric toothbrush and this tooth brush attachment is more like a ,non-electric toothbrush. It doesn’t vibrate. I found that I didn’t like using it and preferred to use the electric toothbrush followed by the Dental Water Jet. I think if you are used to manually brushing your teeth, this solution would work well for you – but for me it didn’t. Also, when using it this way, because you are squirting water into your mouth while brushing, it would rinse away all of the toothpaste before I was done brushing. If I had to change this, I would make the toothbrush attachment more like an electric toothbrush where it actually vibrated and aided in the cleaning of your teeth.
• The on-off button is not intuitive. As mentioned above, it took me a long time to get used to using this without squirting water all over the bathroom mirror. I don’t know if this is just me – or if others would find this frustrating as well, but it seemed like the machine should start squirting water when you pressed the button and then stop when you pressed it again (like an electric toothbrush does). But instead, it starts squirting when you turn the machine on and stops when you press (and hold) the button on the hand-held portion of the devise. I did get used to using it this way, but still find it to be counter-intuitive.
• I can’t bring it with me. This is a good thing for the makers of the Water Jet – because it means that I really like it – but when I was packing to go on vacation, I was really sad that my Water Jet was too large to bring with me. I have the countertop version. After browsing their website, I do see that there is also a cordless and more compact version. So if I had that one, I would have been able to bring it with me.

All-in-all, I really like my Dental Water Jet and I used it daily (sometimes more than once per day). I think that this devise would help any new mom who is worried about her dental health but just doesn’t have the time or energy to put into taking care of herself. Let’s face it, as a mom, our own health and well-being often falls to the bottom of the list after taking care of our families. So if you could have something that enabled you to take better care of yourself – and it was easy to incorporate into your daily routine – wouldn’t you want it?

Well today is your lucky day because the makers of the Waterpik Dental Water Jet have offered to give away one of their Countertop Dental Water Jets to one lucky Mommy News & Views Reader.

To enter this contest, simply visit the Waterpik Webpage and then come back here and leave a comment letting me know why you think this Dental Water Jet would help you with your daily routine. This is mandatory in order to be considered for a prize. One lucky winner will be chosen by random draw at the end of this contest.

For bonus entries, please do any of the following activities. Just be sure to come back here and leave us a comment for each one – letting us know which ones you completed.

1) Follow @Waterpik on Twitter.
2) Become a fan of Waterpik on Facebook.
3) Blog about this post ! Be sure to come back here and leave a comment with a link to your blog post so that we can find it!
4) Spread the word! Tweet about this post and link back to it – be sure to include @MommyNews in your tweet and a link back to this page, and leave a comment here with a link to your tweet (you can do this once per day during the contest).
5) Spread the word some more! Post about this contest on facebook and tell all of your friends about it! (you can do this once per day during the contest)
6) Don’t have a blog, not on facebook or twitter? No problem, we want you to have extra chances to win too – so go ahead and send an email to any of your friends. Be sure to cc: us on your email (info@blog.mothersboutique.com) and leave a comment here too! We promise not to add anyone to any mailing lists unless they specifically request to be added.

That’s it! Lots of ways to win a Waterpik Dental Water Jet!! This contest ends 1/30/10 at 5 PM. All entrants will be verified and must complete the mandatory entry before completing the ‘extra’ entries. Invalid entries will be disqualified. This contest is open to people with US-based mailing addresses ONLY. Winner must respond to email within 48 hours or we reserve the right to choose another winner.

Disclaimer: We received a complementary Countertop Dental Water Jet as part of this review. This gift enabled us to properly review this product and did not affect the objective nature of our review.