Teeth whitening procedures
Whitening your teeth is one of the most commonly asked about procedures. The good news is that in lots of cases, it can be simply and safely achievable to whiten your teeth. The first step is to have a full checkup and make sure we understand what is the cause of the discolouration. This is the issue and possible risk with whitening done with online kits, or at beauty therapists.The causes of discolouration are varied and can mean underlying undiagnosed dental disease. Some of the causes include: thinning of the whitest layer of the tooth over time (the enamel), external staining from dietary causes such as tea, coffee and smoking, trauma to a tooth resulting in pulp canal obliteration (yellow) or previous root canal treatment (grey) or a non-vital or infected tooth which needs root canal treatment (grey) as well as old fillings causing discolouration. Usually an x ray would be needed of a single discoloured tooth to identify the cause of the problem. If the discolouration is generalised and once the teeth are healthy we would recommend a take-home professional whitening kit. We take impressions of your teeth, make custom fitted whitening trays and then deliver the trays, syringes of an optimal and safe concentration of whitening gel and instructions to you. Custom fit trays prevent excess gel causing gum irritation. Usually we would get you to wear the gel in the trays for 1-2 hours each night for around 7 nights. During the treatment you must avoid dark pigmented food and you may experience mild temporary sensitivity. It is an easy process to do. To maintain this whitening we would usually recommend that perhaps once or twice a year you do a single night treatment with your trays and top up kits can be purchased from the practice at minimal additional cost. If the discolouration is only in one tooth (depending on the cause) we may need to perform root canal treatment first if not already done, and then a process of internal whitening can be performed sometimes in conjunction with the external whitening discussed above. Sometimes if old restorations are present that are discoloured, they may need to be replaced after the whitening for the best aesthetic result. You may even want to consider veneers as well (link here).