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I am not 100% convinced yet, but I think flossing teeth can cause more damage than good.
While every dental heath professional will tell you to floss, if you think about it, there are problems.
Getting rid of remaining food and bacterial accumulations forming on sugary residues on your teeth is a good thing. However, driving it around with a piece of string can just as easily shove it deeper under the gum and make matters worse. There is also a significant possibility of cutting with a bacterial-laden floss.
If you have an infected area, using the same piece of floss is almost guaranteed to spread the infection everywhere it touches.
I am unable to floss with my fingers (arthritis and damage from too much typing). For a while I used little plastic flossers, but it was awkward and I hated throwing away so much plastic.
At some point I stumbled onto waterpick, and it seemed like a much better idea. A pulsing waterjet knocks out all food particles, and pressure-washes teeth and gumlines. It is likely to rinse stuff out instead of pushing it in. I am always amazed, after brushing my teeth well, how much junk gets washed out! And so I brush and waterpick at least a couple of times a day.
I think flossing will be one of those things we will laugh about in 50 years, the way we laugh at '9 out of 10 doctors recommend Camel cigarettes' commercials today. It seems like a stupid, barbaric practice. Perhaps scraping the crap out of your teeth twice a year by a hygienist only to watch them grow calculus immediately is another such practice.
I haven't been able to find any hard data or studies. Obviously flossing implies that you are taking pretty good care of your teeth generally, and those who don't floss are lokely to not... I am not aware of any studies of flossing vs waterpicking, combined with brushing...