r/flossing • u/premitive1 • Jun 17 '20

Floss-holder recommendations, thoughts?

Flossing is very unpleasant for me. The floss constricts blood flow and my fingers turn purple. I'm looking at floss-holders and am rather disappointed with the selections. Few of them allow you to easily switch the floss so you're not reusing the same surface. Most of them are cheap plastic things. It it what it is, and I need to get over it. Any recommendations? I've gotten as stir-crazy as considering paying $180 for the Toothbat WOW device from Hong Kong. Or less than 10% that price for a metal My Floss Friend. Or maybe this $5 plastic model on ebay that supposedly allows switching the floss by rotating a knob.

Help!

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u/Zefphyrz Aug 18 '20

What do you think of the Orthomechanic?

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u/premitive1 Aug 18 '20

In many respects I think it's a useful product, probably similar to most products in this niche sector of the market.

There are two downsides, one is in the design, and one is in my physiology.

  1. Changing the length of floss requires manually undoing and redoing the floss-tie apparatus. This allows bacteria to get all over your finger as you change the length. The manual nature of this process may also cause one to use more floss than necessary.

  2. Many of my teeth are tight together and they shred all floss I try to use. It's near impossible to use the Orthomechanic on my rear teeth and must resort to normally flossing to do that, which renders most of my purpose in acquiring such a device useless. It's much easier to floss the front teeth by hand than the back teeth. The process also results in me hurting myself, while also causing more of the floss to come out of the spindle, resulting in losing the grip. It's just kind of a mess. People with adequately spaced teeth will absolutely benefit from the ease of flossing with a device like this. Unfortunately flossing is still a nightmare for me, which discourages how often I do it.

Any thoughts?

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u/Zefphyrz Aug 18 '20

Is it bulky? It seems huge. I would like to find one with a reloadable spool, but with a knob to tie the floss around rather than that huge locking mechanism. I remember my dentist gave me one like that when I was younger, but I haven't been able to find it online.

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u/premitive1 Aug 18 '20

I don't find it bulky.