“Are you red or yellow?” I shout to my hubby from the bathroom, trying to remember how we divvied up the new pack of toothbrushes. It’s a familiar scene played out in our house every couple of months because among the seemingly bazillion things I have to keep track of, toothbrush colors are pretty low on the totem pole.
“Yellow,” he yells back. “Don’t you remember that you were wearing a yellow top when you picked it out for me?”
Darn, he’s good. But the whole conversation got me thinking: Why am I worrying about such things? I kiss my husband. I sleep next to my husband. I share a bathroom with my husband. So if I grab the wrong toothbrush one day, would I really be exposed to more of his germs? For answers, I called R. Claire Campbell, DMD, spokesperson for the Academy of General Dentistry.
“How bad would it be if I used my husband’s toothbrush?” I ask her.
“Well, you’re not going to die from it,” she jokes. But, she says, “some people have certain kinds of bacteria in the mouth that can cause tooth decay and gum disease.” As it turns out, says Campbell, there’s a greater chance of transmitting that bacteria through a toothbrush -- that you’re literally scrubbing your mouth with -- than from a kiss, even if some tongue is involved.
Campbell’s parting advice: “Keep an extra stash of new toothbrushes in your bathroom -- just in case your partner uses your brush by accident.” (Or, in my case, if I forget which color I am.)
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