Antibiotics Before Dental Visits Mostly Unnecessary!

New guidelines for who needs to take antibiotics before a dental visit.

Bottom line: Most people do NOT need to take antibiotics before visiting their dentist.

Please call your health care provider to discuss. Click here to get the latest guidelines from the American Heart Association.

• Contrary to what experts believed until now, there is no proof that common surgical procedures increase the risk of bacterial infection starting within the heart.
  
• Because of this, the current practice of giving patients antibiotics prior to a dental procedure is no longer recommended EXCEPT for patients with the highest risk. These people are people with:
  

1. artificial heart valves
2. previous infection in the heart
3. severe heart malformations
4. heart transplant
   

• NO preventive antibiotics are recommended for bowel and bladder surgeries any more.
• For operations involving lungs, infected skin, or joints, preventive antibiotics are only recommended for the severe categories listed above.