CTV: Allergic to flossing? It can happen, small study finds

As CTV reports:

Many Canadians like to joke that they are “allergic to flossing,” which is why they never do it.

A report earlier this month seemed to let them off the hook, revealing there wasn’t a lot of evidence to support the practice.

Many dentists immediately scrambled to insist that flossing is as important as ever for preventing gum disease. But a new study finds that in a small group of patients, an allergy to flossing could actually be real.

Winnipeg periodontist Dr. Anastasia Cholakis recently published a study about four of these patients, all of whom found that flossing made their gum problems worse.

Cholakis, who is also a professor at the University of Manitoba, says one of her patients had a stubborn case of periodontal disease that persisted for years. The patient had been a meticulous tooth brusher and flosser, but still had terrible gums that were always red, swollen and bleeding.

“We had been trying to treat her for five to six years with no success. I could see the bone melting away from the teeth,” Cholakis tells CTV News….

Cholakis suspected that the patients had developed a hypersensitivity to something in their oral hygiene routine, wondering if they had grown allergic to flossing.

“Very flippantly, we said, ‘Stop flossing,” she says.

The patients did, and within a few months, the redness and bleeding were gone….