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Dental risk???
Two weeks ago, I had a dental cleaning... do they always sterilize their tools between patients? I looked it up and I guess they normally put their sterilized equipment in like a plastic pouch... mine came out of like a brown draw string pouch... how do I know they were sterilized? If they were not, am I at risk for hiv? I don’t believe she punctured my gums at all and I don’t believe I even bled during the procedure... I’m worried. Thanks. I didn’t notice any blood on the instruments.. it’s a very reliable dental clinic in my opinion... I’ve been going there ever since I was a child and they have good reviews... thanks for your inputs
They are required to sterilize their equipment. Much of it is disposable. While you can't get HIV this way, if they didn't do this there are a lot of diseases they could spread and that would be very very bad for business. Now, this can be a problem in extremely poor countries, but we'd be talking extremely extremely poor. HIV isn't the only disease that exists, and dentists are performing something very close to surgery. We all know about germs now. Relax.
Your situation involves personal contact with an object in air (dental equipment. which is not a risk for hiv.) No worries, because you can't get hiv from personal contact except unprotected penetrating vaginal or anal, neither of which you did and you didn't share hollow needles to inject with which is the only other way to acquire hiv. Analysis of large numbers of infected people over the 40 years of hiv history has proven that people don't get hiv in the way that you are worried is a risk.
HIV is a fragile virus in air or saliva and is effectively instantly dead in either air or saliva so the worst that could happen is dead virus rubbed you, and obviously anything which is dead cannot live again so you are good. Blood and cuts would not be relevant in your situation since the hiv has become effectively dead, so you don't have to worry about them to be sure that you are safe.
No medical clinic in the US has given any patient hiv in the last 30 years or you would have read about it.
HIV is a fragile virus in air or saliva and is effectively instantly dead in either air or saliva so the worst that could happen is dead virus rubbed you, and obviously anything which is dead cannot live again so you are good. Blood and cuts would not be relevant in your situation since the hiv has become effectively dead, so you don't have to worry about them to be sure that you are safe.
No medical clinic in the US has given any patient hiv in the last 30 years or you would have read about it.
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