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Teeth Whitening

Teeth can gradually change the colour or become darker through years as a result of aging, external discolouring beverages and food, dark and discoloured filings, and mechanical and chemical trauma.

Board Certified Ophthalmologist Santa Monica, CA

Pro Teeth Whitening

Tooth colour is also influenced by an individual’s genetic makeup.

When our teeth darken due to deposits or stains, a thorough cleaning should be undertaken before teeth-whitening. Teeth-whitening is a dental procedure to lighten colour of natural teeth.

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Who would benefit from teeth whitening?

    Individuals with natural teeth with minimal restorations, root exposure, cervical caries and enamel damage.
    Individuals with types of superficial discolorations caused by beverages, and food or smoking.
    Individuals who strictly adhere to the home whitening protocol as well as the postoperative aftercare.

What is the procedure for home teeth whitening?

The dentist takes impressions of your teeth to make individual custom-made flexible whitening trays that fits around your teeth. The whitening gel is placed in the tray following the dentist’s instructions. The whitening trays are filled with whitening gel and applied for several hours at a time when convenient. The teeth will become gradually lighter over a period of 2-3 weeks depending on the initial severity of the discoloration, the hydrogen peroxide concentration and the duration of application.

Dental whitening techniques normally use Sodium-perborate or Carbamide-peroxide with the content of up to 3% to 6% hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Dependent on the nature and depth of the discolouration, some teeth or dentition may have tendency for gradual regress in darkening. Therefore, to improve and maintain the obtained lightened teeth, the existing whitening trays can be re-used for home-whitening procedures at intervals when needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What are the alternatives dental treatments to teeth whitening?

    Teeth whitening procedures offer the advantage of not destructing the healthy tooth structure. However, teeth whitening may not always be the most efficient treatment of choice to sufficiently treat aesthetically disturbing damaged teeth, large discoloured fillings, deep tooth discolorations (e.g. drug-induced tetracycline discolorations).

    As an alternative treatment, white composite filling materials could also be used to camouflage or disguise the underlying colour of the teeth.

    The provision of laminate porcelain veneers or crowns can improve the shape, forms and the colour of the underlying tooth or filling materials. Sometimes, to protect large filling or root-filled teeth providing a crown is an indicated option.
    However, care should be taken not to remove a significant amount of sound natural tooth substance, and to avoid tooth destructive procedures instead of efficient teeth whitening.

  • How could discoloured traumatised, necrotic or root-canal treated teeth be whitened?

    The management of the discoloured teeth following intra pupal bleeding, pulp necrosis or root canal treatment could be successfully pursued by implementing combined intra-coronal and extra-coronal teeth whitening techniques as a valid treatment modality in terms of safety, efficacy, time efficiency and aesthetic outcome.

    The discoloured non-vital teeth have shown chromatic stability when subjected to the combined teeth whitening technique.

    The internal tooth whitening usually requires 2 or 3 settings lasting a couple of days and using stronger concentration of per-oxide. Once sufficient whitening results has been obtained, the dentist will replace the temporary filling with a new composite filling.

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