I first mentioned the idea of Flossuary in a staff meeting a few years ago. It raised a few giggles and nothing much more was said about it!
Since qualifying as a dental hygienist (B’ham 2003), I have worked in a large, family owned mixed practice.
Having worked here for many years, I’ve spent hours trying to think of new ways to motivate patients, especially those troublesome ones I’ve seen for years but whose compliance with oral hygiene advice is sporadic to say the least! (we all have them!)
One February, i was giving one of my patients a common spiel….”just try it for a month, if you can make yourself do it for a month you will see and feel a difference...just do it for the whole of February” I looked at my nurse and chuckled “Flossuary!!”
This idea amused me (if only for the fact that I’d invented a new word!) and I began mentioning Flossuary to a few other patients, mainly as a way of trying to motivate them.
This also gave me a great platform to start talking to patients about reasons to clean between their teeth that they may not be aware of.
We all talk about the need for good oral hygiene to prevent tooth loss and this is widely accepted among many patients….but are patients equally as aware of the growing evidence that our periodontal health is linked to a number of serious systemic health conditions? The more I talked about Flossuary, the more and more people I found who were unaware of these links. I was surprised to find many diagnosed diabetic patients who were also blissfully unaware of the impact that periodontal disease could have on their glycemic control (and vice versa). So the idea of Flossuary steadily grew in my mind and a few months later I approached my boss again.
….”I’d like to try Flossuary, in this practice.” He agreed and I set to work constructing an information pack to give out.
I produced a cover letter explaining that Flossuary is a 28 day challenge to clean between your teeth every day for the month of February. I printed instructions on different interdental hygiene aids with pictures showing how to use them and a troubleshooting guide to help reassure patients about bleeding etc. I also included a 28 day tick chart to act as a reminder.
For the first Flossuary in 2018, I produced about 50 information packs and these were given out by dentists in my practice, to patients they felt would benefit, and also by hygienists as a motivational tool. The feedback was really positive. Many people had completed the 28 days and were planning to continue their new habit.
Over the next two years I continued to grow Flossuary. I circulated more information packs and also gained product support from TePe, which enabled me to include samples of “easy-to-use” oral hygiene aids for participants to try.
I built a website in an attempt to make this information accessible to everyone (This was a challenge, my expertise is definitely not in IT!). I have a great practice Principal who is very keen on health promotion and agreed to sponsor Flossuary last year. A small amount of funding meant I could pay for professionally printed information and a few promotional posters. Flossuary 2020 was trialled in several dental practices in England.
Again, I was so pleased with the amount of positive feedback from participants. Dentists found it a great way to give detailed oral hygiene advice without using up too much precious appointment time and staff wore badges saying “ask me about Flossuary”....we had fun involving the whole team at the same time as promoting these important health messages.
My vision for Flossuary is to reach everyone with the valuable knowledge that we try to drum into our patients daily, not for it to be confined to those who visit a dental practice. There is confusion over products and how to use them, but perhaps more importantly, a lack of understanding of just how important periodontal health may be to systemic well-being. The strong links between diabetes and periodontal disease illustrate this clearly and the evidence is mounting up in other areas...cardiovascular disease (CVD), Alzheimers and kidney disease, to name but a few! Newly diagnosed patients are often unaware of dental advice and the impact periodontal inflammation could be having on their holistic health. Flossuary aims to raise awareness of these growing links at the same time as providing a motivational tool to improve periodontal health.
My future plans for Flossuary are ever evolving you could say! I’m constantly having little light bulb moments about things I could do, it’s a growing list. Unfortunately I am limited by financial constraints, but recently, with the kind support of TePe, I have been able to rebuild my original website to include a sign up function (as well as a whole new look!). TePe's sponsorship has meant that participants can now sign up online to receive their Flossuary pack. This function makes distribution much easier and addresses the contact issues of handing out packs in practices in the current climate! It also means that Flossuary is able to reach participants who may not access regular dental care, which is one of the main aims of Flossuary. I plan to try to involve other sectors of health care with this project, in the hope that we can work together and continue to improve the health of our patients.
I’m always happy to hear from anyone who might like to get involved with Flossuary and welcome any comments (these can be sent via the contacts page at www.flossuary.com or by emailing enquiries@flossuary.com). But most importantly, I would like Flossuary to keep raising awareness of the importance of a healthy mouth for years to come and to continually highlight the additional benefits that good periodontal health may have on our general well-being.