Advantages and disadvantages of teeth whitening

Dr. Shah: Hi Ronda, welcome to ask the doctor. Please ask your question.

Ronda (Patient): Yes doctor, I wanted to know what are the advantages of teeth whitening and if there are any harmful effects or anything I should know in taking care of my teeth when I get teeth whitening?

Dr. Shah: Lots of people are getting their teeth whitened, so this is a very appropriate question. Thank you for asking that question. Now the advantages, let’s take the advantages first. When you get your teeth whitened, how do you feel? What happens to you? You like the whitened teeth, you’re more presentable, you smile more, and your confidence will go up. Your self-esteem will go up. You’re going to be, going out more and talking with the people rather than hiding your smile. If you have darker teeth So many people, put their hands on their faces while they’re talking. Sometimes they just talk while covering their mouth so nobody can see their teeth. So, it’s kind of what you call low self-esteem. So, when you whiten your teeth, you open up the world. You have a lot more confidence. You have a lot more confidence now, Something like that, so that’s part of the first part of your question. The second part is any harmful effect. This whitening of the teeth. They’re done two different ways. One is in the office, another one is at home, now home. At home it’s also divided into two different categories one is prescribed by the dentist, another one is you can pick up over the counter. So, there are a total of three different whitening methods you can do it over here, so I’m going to give you a little bit of brief information so you have better knowledge or understanding about teeth whitening. Number 1 is office whitening or whitening done by the dentist. This solution is very high in concentration because we do it under control over here. There we cover your gums, so this solution doesn’t touch your gums and we do it with the time frame of 20 minutes and 3 cycles. So that works very well and then you get the results right away. So this is practically for the people who are getting married next week or having an anniversary or family reunion or whatever, the function where they need to be presentable, then we can do it. We always, I don’t know about other offices, but in my office whenever we do whenever we do office whitening, we do home bleaching also at the same time. Did they do your impression (mold) for the bleaching? Yeah, so they will be making your trays, so what’s going to happen is, you need maintenance. When you do the teeth whitening in the office The pore of the teeth they opened up, so they absorbed very quickly, any pigmented favorite foods like tea, coffee, soda, chocolate, or red wine, all the sausages, Fruits and vegetables which are dark in color, those pigments from the food will be absorbed by your teeth and get them darker, so patients get upset, hey, I paid this much amount of money. I got my whitening done and it was very nice, why did it get dark. So that’s why we offer them a home bleach so he can do the maintenance. So that is the one part, the second part is now, sorry the first part I will finish, this can be done two or three different ways one is without putting any light. So, what we do is we have two different kinds of solutions. We mix and activate them and put it on your teeth. So, the solution gets activated by mixing each other. That’s one method. The second method is to put the solution on your teeth and then put a light. The light LED light, sometimes they use UV light, or sometimes they use a laser. All those things will activate the solution, and then the bleaching process will start. So, this is the second method. Now we go to the home bleaching, Home Bleaching can be done in two ways. One is as I said, we take the impression to make the tray give you the solution. It’s sensitive and will be very common for a little while until it goes away, but it’s not. So then, then you will have a bleaching tray taken home, we will give you the gel. You put the gel into the tray and you wear the tray for at least a couple of hours. So, the solution stays in contact with the teeth for a couple of hours and makes them whiter or do the maintenance now. This solution is lower in concentration, so if it leaks or touches your gums or something like that, It’s not very caustic or very strong in nature, so it will not harm anything to you. That’s why it’s for the home purpose and the second one is using a strip or something over the counter available. Now when you use anything over the counter, the key issue here is the solution should stay in contact with the teeth without any changes in concentration for longer Time is like a couple of hours, then and then it’s effective to reduce. That’s why they mouth wash which claim that it’s whitening mouthwash or toothpaste, which they claim is whitening toothpaste They don’t work, because how long you can keep your mouthwash in your mouth, how long the toothpaste, you can brush with the toothpaste. For a minute or so, right and minute contact with your teeth is not going to get the results, they have to stay at least for a couple of hours like 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Only Then you get the results and that results can be achieved with the customized tray very well and it is under the control of the doctor, so I think so. That is a better over-the-counter, also works very well quite a few times, but the better solution is to get it done by the doctor. Now the last part of your question, Is there any harmful effect of the bleaching? Practically, only one side effect is sensitivity, and that’s also transient. All bleaching is approved by the FDA, so they are very safe. They won’t damage your teeth at all, because all the bleaching gels have hydrogen peroxide, which is oxygen release there, it’s there so oxygen will not harm your teeth. Oxygen will go into the deep of the tooth structure and then lift the pigments and take them out. That’s how your teeth get lighter in shade. So, to answer your question, there is no harmful effect. The only side effect if you want to say it is just the sensitivity to the teeth which is transient and it’s going to go away. Thank you so much.