Heroic Whistleblower Reveals That Flossing Does Nothing And Your Dentist Is A Liar

Six months ago, at a routine tooth cleaning, the dental hygienist chided me for inadequate flossing. “You’re not getting in to the gums,” she scolded. “You need to dig.” I was disappointed because I’d made a concerted effort to increase my flossing. For the previous six months, I had flossed about three times a week—a noted improvement from my old routine of never. This flosseissance was galvanized by my dentist’s prophecy: a life devoid of flossing will surely end in gum disease, heart problems, and/or cancer. But not AIDs. I asked.

Staring up the barrels of that three-disease firing squad, I got to flossin’. Every single day, I dove into the recesses of my teeth, scraping and sliding and plucking out any late lodgers from breakfast. At first, my gums bled like an inside-out porcupine. But in time, the flow dried up, and I grew to enjoy the process—so much so, in fact, that I was looking forward to today’s cleaning, to show them all how far I’d come. You know when your family sits you down for what you think is an estate planning conversation, only to learn that it’s an intervention ambush? Then you head to rehab and come home three months later, excited to show everyone that the scabs have heeled? That’s how I felt heading in to my appointment.

Up I jumped into the chair. She didn’t even need to tell me to open my mouth; I was wide, baby. Off went my shoes, out came the hooked metal tool, on went the overhead light, and in went her fingers. Two molars later, my mouth was bleeding so profusely that Ramsey Bolton would have told her to lay off. I don’t know what sort of hellish foster program raised this demon child, but clearly the system failed her. She was ruthless, pulling out chunks of my gums and scraping in to the sensitive base of my teeth with gusto. I could tell she was enjoying it, too, because she started humming. Humming! Like a dwarf. Or maybe they whistle. Yeah, whistle.

I called her on it, too. “Hey, uh, I taste a lot of blood,” I gurgled. She blamed it on me immediately. “That’s what happens when you don’t floss.”

Ah-HA! Bitch I floss! I been flossing! I followed orders, the orders given to me by this very torture office six months ago. And for what? Here we are, and you’re singing the same bullshit song. But she didn’t miss a beat:

“You need to brush for the full two minutes, then.”

BAH GAWD WOMAN, I DO! I use an hourglass like an apothecary in Victorian England! It looks like a much smaller version of the one that Jaffar used to nearly kill Jasmine, once he had Genie powers? Is this hitting for you? They didn’t play Disney films at the center? Apologies. But guess what: it’s a three-minute hourglass. The sand is slow! I go above and beyond. What now?

“Well, sometimes stress can cause plaque buildup. No matter how much you brush or floss, the plaque builds in the gum line and when I pull it out, it causes bleeding.”

Oh. She’s good. She’s very good. Stress is the easiest scapegoat in the world. People love to talk about how stressed they are. Everybody is stressed. Skin breaking out? Stress. Can’t get boned up? Stress. Can’t fall asleep? Stress. Don’t even consider that he might be a juicing, closeted insomniac. Can’t be. Has to be stress.

This was my study. I played by their rules for six months and nothing changed. They still told me that I wasn’t flossing enough. And what would make a dental hygienist blindly blame my bleeding gums on me? Simple: dentists are in bed with big string. In the same way that pharma companies incentivize doctors to prescribe their drugs with courtside seats and bags of cash, dentists are constantly pushing spools of floss because they’re on the take. That’s the way it is because that’s the way it’s been, forever.

All I can do is present my story. From what I can gather, flossing does absolutely nothing for your mouth. Mouthwash and brushing are the keys to healthy teeth and gums. If you’re tired of your fingers turning purple because the floss is strangling your tips like an angry python, give up. Your dentist is lying to you.

Update: I JUST saw this blog from Ellie about flossing in public. I missed it when she published it in February because something came up, I guess. Anyway, it’s about me. I floss with flossers at my desk, quietly, in my own space, and then I throw them away. Apparently Ellie takes umbrage with this. Booohooo, gross! How could you floss at work? Well Ellie, maybe because people hock dip spit into their bottles here? Maybe because people shit on the floor in the bathroom here? Maybe because we have open  food that stays out overnight and attracts the rats and because this office operates at lightspeed disgusting? Christ. Let’s get some perspective. You’re out here trying to shame public flossers while I’m trying to save the fucking planet from plastic waste. Different strokes, I guess. 

Second update: Kevin also wrote a blog about flossing a few years ago. Missed that one too, but I do read his work (helluva writer, Kevin is).