Expert: Kristen Brannock, MPH - 10/18/2008

Question
So I went to the dentist today and for some reason I got the feeling that the place wasn't very clean and I wasn't really sure if they cleaned their instruments very well or even at all. For some reason I still stayed and when the dentist went to clean my teeth she jabbed me in my gums in a couple of places and when I went to rinse my mouth there was blood. So I was wondering if they did not clean their instruments and the instruments were used on a person with HIV/AIDS is there a chance of me being infected from that?

Answer
There are a lot of "ifs" in your question... as a standard, dentists and medical practitioners sterilize instruments based on a standard protocol. If you went to some "back woods" denstist then I cannot speak to their cleanliness.

If instruments are not cleaned and used between patients there is a very small chance that HIV can be transmitted. There have been a few cases of this in the past, but it is NOT common.