History of the HydroPik (by Alan Gibbs - The Inventor/Excerpts From)

I felt a need to be a more productive human being, which prompted me to think more and more about my dad’s  teachings.  So I vowed to spend three days in meditation over the Labor Day weekend. My thought was to "allow me to create something useful; something that would help all of mankind”. At the end of that weekend, I just knew I was going to clean teeth with water pressure, somehow.  And, I envisioned that it would take place in the shower.

Immediately after that Labor Day weekend, I purchased some materials and began to experiment.  I continued experimenting with water delivery systems intermittently over the years, when I noticed the kitchen sink diverter valve, which diverts water through a hose to give you a kitchen sink hand spray. I recognized immediately that one of these valves could easily be installed in a bathroom faucet, which would give you a much more convenient dental spray. However, it still would not pulsate. And, pulsation is the most desirable feature of any oral irrigator, for pulsation creates the on-and-off surges of water, and therefore the benefit of increased effectiveness. I installed a valve in the shower head of my bathroom, and at this point, I began the chase for the pulsation, which became the chase of a lifetime.

Other valve manufactures considered “chatter” to be undesirable, and they designed their valves to eliminate “chatter”. How ironic, there I was trying to create what they were trying to get rid of, and designing a valve to get the results I wanted (pulsation). The principle behind the pulsation turned out to be beautifully simple, but appeared to be so complex that it stumped me and the best hydraulic engineers for years. It took me a long time to begin to control the pulsation. And it took me years before I made the breakthrough to understand how it worked. After all, how could one moving part possibly pulsate?

Finally, the moment of understanding came. I was driving in my car, and suddenly, I got a partial view of what was causing the one moving part to oscillate. I was able to see and clearly understand the process. Everyone had been looking for the answer inside the device. But in reality, the primary action involved the plumbing and the water system. The valve sends the initial shock wave upstream, and the pressure wave goes back and forth until it starts to reinforce one frequency of oscillation, and suddenly, “the resonate wave” is established. Pressure waves travel near the speed of sound, therefore, all of this takes little more than one second. The hypothesis was confirmed by well-designed scientific tests.

When I finally applied for a patent, the examiner immediately wrote back to say, “PATENT DENIED BECAUSE THE DEVICE COULD NOT POSSIBLY PULSATE”. However, I did have a working model, and I received a patent from most of the countries with large populations, including Russia. Nonetheless, it took eight years and many scientific tests to get the U.S. Patent Office to issue not one, but two very strong U.S. patents, covering the principles that I was allowed to see so clearly. The experts were completely amazed by the function of the device. Their reverence was due to the tremendous pressure changes in one second. We called it the “Resonant Wave”.

I wanted to help all of mankind, and my prayer was answered! After all, next to the common cold, gums/periodontal disease may be man’s most common affliction.