14 DAY TRIAL // The human body is an intricate machinery. Be that as it may, hearing that injured gums can lead to a knee infection, and a serious one at that, does come across as a bit odd.
Still, this is precisely what happened to a woman in Minnesota, who doctors say developed an infection in one of her knees not because she fell and injured herself, but from flossing a tad too eagerly.
How injured gums can lead to knee trouble
The woman's case is described in a report published earlier this month in the British Medical Journal.
According to Dr. Ala Dababneh and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic, where the patient was treated, the woman sought medical help when her right knee became swollen and painful, and she started experiencing chills.
A quick medical exam later, the woman was diagnosed with a severe infection in her damaged knee.
Blood tests revealed the cause of the infection to be a bacterium called Streptococcus gordonii. Seeing how this bacterium is usually found in the mouth, the Mayo Clinic team were a bit surprised by this diagnosis.
It all made sense when the woman confessed to flossing so vigorously that her gums would bleed.
Thus, Dr. Ala Dababneh and colleagues say the bacterium probably entered her bloodstream through her injured gums and then traveled all the way to her knee, where it set up camp.
To treat the infection, the medical team opened up the woman's knee, flushed out most of the infection and then prescribed her antibiotics. Soon enough, the patient made a complete recovery.
A previous intervention explains this odd case
About 5 years before she developed the Streptococcus gordonii infection, the woman had undergone a knee-replacement surgery.
Because implants do not have an immune system to keep them safe, they are more vulnerable to infections, which explains why something as simple as flossing ended up sending this woman to the emergency room.
All the same, Dr. Ala Dababneh insists that people keep up the habit, especially if they've gone through a knee-replacement surgery or some other similar intervention.
Otherwise, the risk to contract Streptococcus gordonii is even greater. Nonetheless, flossing until one's gums start bleeding is not recommended.
“It's a rare event. I don't want people to worry that just flossing is going to cause them an infection in their prosthetic joint,” Dr. Ala Dababneh said in an interview, as cited by Live Science.