The tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth


 Posted on July 29th, 2020 –

The Toronto Star ran an article yesterday about going to the dentist while pandemicking.

I’d very recently gone myself with a chipped tooth so I can confirm everything that I read as being entirely accurate. I wasn’t asked “a lot” of questions but that’s an entirely subjective measure so I’ll leave it at that.

There wasn’t anything really exceptional about the write-up except for a brief line about halfway through:

Many dentists are now using a [pre-procedural] hydrogen peroxide-based rinse, which is thought to also help with viruses.

It wasn’t the insertion of a link to a name-brand mouth rinse product in this sentence that I found curious, even though it came across as a sort of stealth advertisement, it was the statement that hydrogen peroxide was in the rinse.

Ah, I thought, so that’s why the mouthwash tasted a little different. Dentist never bothered to tell me what was in it. I can’t say that I’m bothered by the chemical’s presence but it would still have been nice for the dentist to let me know what I was swishing with.

Whatevs.

But it got me wondering just how effective hydrogen peroxide is in dealing with viruses like Covid. So I did some research and it turns out it’s pretty efficacious. But there’s a catch.

According to information provided by the city, achieving the “high-level of disinfection” that actually kills bacteria and viruses requires that the chemical be kept in the mouth anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes depending on the variety used. I sure as hell didn’t swish for that long and I doubt most patients do.

Even “low-level disinfection” that kills “some” bacteria and viruses needs you to rinse for a minimum of 10 minutes, which I also wasn’t anywhere close to achieving.

As far I know, hydrogen peroxide is generally safe so it’s highly unlikely that rinsing with it will cause any problems. But at the same time, it seems that the way it’s being used also doesn’t offer many benefits in terms of virus protection.

I’ll readily admit that my familiarity with this topic is pretty shallow but it does seem that this particular portion of a dental visit is more wishful thinking than a proven solution, at least in the way that it’s being used presently.

It makes me wonder what other things are being done for our “protection” that, although they may be entirely benign, also don’t offer the stated benefits.

What's on your mind?