Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

10 Comment United Kingdom Edition April 15-21, 2013 Tailor Made Decontamination In One Day! Whatever Your Needs, Large or Small, Trycare Will Meet Them! DIRTY RINSE EURONDA E9 MED AUTOCLAVE HMCE CLEAN ONE2 1500 1900 Building a disciplined environment is essential for good infection control. Every practice is different in shape, size, and space available. We have an enviable reputation for designing one that fits! From as Little as £3,800 Price £3,900 Efficiently Quicker The Euronda E9 Med’s rapid cycle function for quicker sterilisation and drying. User Accessable Water tanks can be inspected and cleaned by the user without the need for a technician. Easy to Use Interactive menu. Clear, visible large blue LCD display and integrated printer. Guaranteed Comes with a 2 year warranty. Requires only annual validation and twice yearly servicing. Safety Conforms to EU standards EN61010-1, EN61010-2-040, EN150-14971, EN61320 and EN13445. Euronda E9 Med A Vacuum Autoclave you can Trust! RAPID CYCLE! tel. 01274 885544 www.trycare.co.uk I t has always bugged me that patients consider bleeding gums to be a bad thing. On the face of it, no one really wants to see their gums bleed, but if one only sees bleeding when they clean their gums is it not actually a good thing? At what point did it become acceptable to allow pharmaceutical com- panies to advertise that bleed- ing gums are bad and that their products provide a ‘total’ clean. Is the slogan ‘bleeding gums are bad’ an appropriate message or does it act to implant a sugges- tion that results in our patients becoming reluctant to make their gums bleed and therefore stay away from cleaning? Television adverts from a well known toothpaste manu- facturer (for legal reasons the actual brand name has been re- placed with ‘Tooth-gate’ for the purposes of this article) clearly suggest that by using their prod- ucts patients won’t see blood when they floss. Given that Tooth-gate claims to be used by more dentists than any other brand, I decided to investigate further. In a poorly carried out sci- entific study, involving a sample of one (me) without any form of randomised double blinding, I used Tooth-gate and did not floss my teeth for four weeks in strict accordance with the man- ufacturer’s directions for use. No ethical approval was sought for this study on the grounds that it may infringe upon my human rights, which for the purpose of the experiment I have chosen to waive. The results were astonish- ing. Four weeks into the study, I finally succumbed to flossing my teeth and found blood. Emotion- ally I was a wreck, having had the faintest glimmer of belief in Tooth-gate crushed out of me on the sight of blood. Thankfully I found strength through my wife Anya, who encouraged me to carry on with the study for the sake of science, however deep down I really don’t think I have fully recovered – I am told it will take time. The presence of blood on my floss is unarguably a result of an ongoing inflammatory reaction designed to protect me against bacteria. Suggesting that a tooth- paste is able to stop gums bleed- ing when you floss is akin to suggesting that one really does not need to floss at all, after all if there is no bleeding then surely The benefits of making gums bleed and finding out you have tooth decay Neel Kothari discusses the hysteria behind bleeding gums ‘It has always bugged me that patients consider bleeding gums to be a bad thing’