Doctors warn toothbrush injuries on rise, can be fatal

Nagpur: Doctors at the Government Dental College and Hospital (GDCH) have recorded an increase in incidence of toothbrush injuries recently. Most of the injuries have taken place among children who were either busy playing while brushing their teeth or parents forcibly tried to brush their teeth, or they were pushed by someone.
Doctors warned that these injuries in the soft tissues can also be life threatening if proper care is not taken while carrying out the daily activity. A five-year-old old girl, who had a brush in her mouth, was pushed by a sibling at home following which the brush penetrated through her cheek, causing severe injury.
Dr Ritesh Kalaskar, professor and head of department of paediatrics and preventive dentistry at GDCH, told TOI that they had to make a cut to remove the brush as it got stuck in soft tissues. “Every year many cases pertaining to toothbrush injuries are reported to our department. The five-year-old girl was hit by an external object while the brush was inside her mouth, leading to the penetration of the entire head of the brush inside the buccal mucosa, that is, the soft tissue of the cheek,” he said.
Kalaskar added, “The patient was made calm and after administration of local anaesthesia, an incision was made and the toothbrush was retrieved. Sutures were given and the patient was kept on a follow-up thereafter. The patient was completely normal after one month without any traces of the injury.”
The GDCH doctor said one of the reasons for increase in incidence is restriction of movement. “As kids are largely confined to homes these days, they tend to indulge in mischief from the morning. Since there is no rush for school, they start playing even while brushing. Most of the patients reside in smaller houses and have limited space to move about. Hence, it is important to pay attention to these activities as negligence can prove harmful,” he said.
The dental professor added that quality of the toothbrush is also paramount. “We found that people used poor quality brushes and often don’t change them for long,” he said.
Kalaskar said that in some cases reported from other parts of the world, the toothbrush reached the posterior neck and caused damage to important organs such as the trachea and large blood vessels. This might lead to serious complications such as breathing problems, pharyngeal abscess, hematoma and even death due to damage to the internal carotid artery, he added.