Can Your Toothbrush Make You Sick

No, unless it’s someone else’s toothbrush (or someone else’s cold). Much like the admonition from shampoo companies to “lather, rinse, repeat,” the idea that a toothbrush must be replaced seems designed to sell more product. Once you’ve been infected with a particular strain of a virus, you develop antibodies that make the likelihood of re-infection very low. Even if the virus were still hanging out on your toothbrush after you recovered—colds and flus can survive there in an infective state for anywhere from a few hours to three days—those antibodies should keep you from contracting the same illness twice. Your toothbrush is no more dangerous while you’re still sick, since the viral load on the bristles is negligible compared with what’s already in your system.