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Comment by jdalt | Hacker News Reader

> I know flossing is good, my dentist even claims it is essential. I don’t doubt he’s right.

The medical evidence for the efficacy of flossing is fairly scant: http://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12352226/dental-floss-even-work

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I stopped flossing for a while (forget why) right before a check-up. The "gum quality" numbers (scale of 1-5) that the hygienist called out for each tooth gap were conspicuously worse than usual. I hadn't told them I hadn't been flossing. After that feedback, I regained flossing religion. Come next check-up, the numbers were back in the normal range.

Feel free to file this anecdata as appropriate to your needs.

I absolutely hate flossing and never do it. I bought one of those dental pressure washer things to compensate, and I love it. It blasts piles of food gunk out from between your teeth, way better than flossing will ever hope to accomplish, as well as flushes under the gumline. Plus, it takes less time than flossing. The dental workers have commented that I floss very well, joke's on them. ;-)

Electric toothbrushes are also great for keeping your teeth very clean, and can penetrate between your teeth depending on the design.

Just because there is no medical evidence, it doesn't mean that you don't benefit from flossing, it just means nobody has spent the money to prove the benefits of flossing.

I trust the advice of my dentist more than I trust Vox. And my dentist says if I don't floss I will probably get gum disease.

I also floss everyday. For me it's more of a Pascal's wager plus affirmation of the hygienist thing.

Yes. People might balk at your Vox link, but I'd advise anyone to look into it themselves. There's little good research about flossing: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/9611

My personal belief is that flossing does something since you can clearly see food bits or whatever on used floss, but that's different from believing those food bits wouldn't be removed by normal brushing anyway or that they even cause harm.

Anecdata of course but my dentist always seems to remove little food bits flossing during a checkup that weren't removed in brushing just before.

After the last checkup he recommended an automatic flossing machine (Waterpik).

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