"James Harris" wrote:
The BBC's Jeremy Vine show has a piece coming up today on some kind of
DIY dentistry. I was fairly amazed at the idea though I haven't heard
the details yet.

Apparently it is possible to buy hygenists tools for home use. For
example, a web search brought up

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008URJGTG

These are dental scalers. Even being able to buy things like these is a
surprise. My hygenist once refused to do a certain piece of cleaning
work which was about removing clear cement from the surface of a tooth,
preferring to refer that part of the job to the dentist so that he would
take responsibility for distinguishing cement from tooth material. So
the idea of buying tools to 'scrape' your own teeth is surprising, to
say the least.

Anyone tried dental DIY? Anyone brave enough to consider it? Or is it
easier and safer, if approached responsibly, than one might imagine?

Not the usual DIY topic, eh!

James

I've been using tools like those for a couple of years. Dental enamel is
*very* tough and you'd have to have very rotten teeth to risk doing any
damage I reckon.

They are a billion times better than fannying around with bits of floss or
interdental brushes IMO and my own dentist has only had to do a bit of
"top-up" de-scaling once out of my last four visits since I started using
them.

Tim