Safe Dental Water

At Sweet Smiles, one of our top priorities is providing 100% safe quality water for each of our patients. Our goal is to keep every patient safe throughout their office visit. Part of this goal is ensuring that the water we use is always safe. At Sweet Smiles, we guarantee that we will provide safe water at every visit.

Sadly, an outbreak of mycobacteria in several dental offices across Southern California has affected many. Dozens of children have been infected, including some who had to be hospitalized or experienced serious complications. This can affect teens and adults too! Because of this crisis, we’re more concerned than ever before about providing the safest water possible in order to protect each and every one of our patients.

When it comes to clean water, our office follows both the guidelines from the Dental Board of California, as well as CDC best practices, including the following:

At the beginning of each workday, dental unit lines and devices are purged with air or flushed with water for at least two minutes prior to attaching handpieces, scalers, air water syringe tips or other devices. The dental unit lines and devices are flushed between each patient for a minimum of 20 seconds.

We review procedures for maintaining dental unit water quality at ≤500 cfu/mL heterotrophic water bacteria.

We consult with the manufacturer of the dental unit for appropriate water maintenance methods and recommendations for monitoring dental water quality.

Water samples from our office are tested regularly by a third party independent lab to ensure the safety of our water.

At Sweet Smiles we make sure each patient is guaranteed a safe and healthy visit. For more information, the OSAP has made a Q&A sheet concerning water safety. Please call our office with any additional questions!