Antibiotics before Dental Visits?

The American Heart Association has concluded that many patients, who have been told to take antibiotics before dental appointments, no longer need to take that precaution.

For decades the American Heart Association has recommended that patients with certain heart conditions take antibiotics before dental treatment. This was done in the belief that the medicine would prevent an infection in the heart following the introduction of bacteria into the blood stream. (A situation that occurs every time your gums bleed.) The long-held assumption was that dental cleanings or procedures might release harmful levels of bacteria into the bloodstream.

There is a great deal of scientific information available on this subject, but the "bottom line" is this: A long term study has found that dental work is no more of a challenge to the immune system than other daily routines (both creating the same kind of exposure to bacterial influx), so we can no longer point to the use of routine antibiotics as an effective preventive measure.

At Fiddlehead Dental we have always followed the AHA guidelines very carefully and will continue to do so by adhering to these new recommendations.

The new American Heart Association guidelines say that patients who no longer need to take pre-medication before dental appointments include people with:

• Mitral Valve Prolapse
• History of Rheumatic Heart Disease
• Bicuspid Valve Disease
• Calcified Aortic Stenosis
• Congenital Heart conditions such as ventricular septal defect, atrial septal defect and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy


You still have to take the antibiotics before dental visits if you have a history of:

• Joint replacement (In 2009, the American Academy of Othopedics and the American Heart Association finally agreed on a uniform standard of recommending that all patients with joint replacements have antibiotics before dental visits for the rest of their lives.)

• Artificial heart valves

• A history of a heart infection called Endocarditis

• Certain specific serious congenital birth defects of the heart

• Shunts

• For 6 months following the placement of any prosthetic material or device used to completely repair a heart defect.

• A cardiac transplant

If you have further questions about this important subject, please refer to the American Heart Association Link on this website.