US 10,517,703 B2 · Dental flossing device

Abstract

A dental flossing device is made of an elastic material. Its central structure is a resiliently stretchable elastic, bridge strip with a cross section having different shapes. When stretched, the strip has a changeable diameter to help remove debris between teeth. The strip includes corrugations or spirals along its length and may include different drugs or flavors to give the user a medicine or a taste while cleaning the teeth. At each end of the strip, there is an elastic opposing handle. Handles may be bridged by two or more stretchable strips. The two handles may have different dimensions and thicknesses, as well as different profiles; they may be resiliently stretchable so as to serve themselves as additional flossing members. The device may comprise more than two handles and more than one flossing strip and thus may form various configurations such as ring-like, chain-like, star-like, etc. A method for making the dental flossing device out of the elastic material includes molding the elastic, bridge strip and integrally molding the elastic opposing handles at opposite ends of the strip.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A dental flossing device comprising elastic handles bridged by at least one elastic flossing strip made of a material resiliently stretchable in a range of 50% to 800% of its original length under a stretching force applied by fingers of a user, while completely returning to its original length when said stretching force is no longer applied,

wherein the elastic handles are loops made of a resiliently stretchable material, which handles are adapted to serve as additional flossing members of the device,
and wherein the thickness of the material of each of said handles, in the initial state thereof prior to stretching, differs from one another and from the thickness of the material of the stretchable flossing strip, in the initial state thereof prior to stretching, such that each of said handles and said stretchable flossing strip are adapted to be inserted between adjacent lower jaw teeth from above or between adjacent upper jaw teeth from below, the portion of the device selected for insertion between any given pair of adjacent teeth being determined by the dimensions of the inter-proximal space (IPS) therebetween, thereby providing three different portions on the same device, respectively suitable for flossing IPSs of different dimensions.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Dental flossing device

Life of this patent

Dental flossing device

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims16