Can It Work Too Well?

Of all the concerns about the effectiveness, safety and affordability of dental treatment one that you rarely hear before the teeth whitening procedure is “Will this work too well?”. This is understandable. No-one is rushed to hospital after breaking their leg worried that the surgeons will do the job so effectively that their leg will be too good after the operation. “Good” is what we are looking for, so better is, well, better – isn’t it?

It may be so, but when it comes to teeth whitening, there are people who have had the treatment and then been shocked to see just how white their teeth now are. Jokes abound – if they switch the light off they have to close their mouths, and so on. In this case, the surgery definitely can be too effective. Quite apart from anything else, it’s like the hair dye job that aims for blonde and comes out the other side into silver. It’s worked too well, and it looks unnatural. Now everyone knows you spent money to look like that.

Take a real poll of the success and effectiveness that other people have had from their teeth-whitening treatment. Go by word of mouth, check consumer sites online and use message boards to find out which companies other people have used and what they thought of their treatment. You can never be a hundred per cent certain of the success of your treatment in advance – but you can inform yourself to a level of confidence.

Working From The Outside In

Cosmetic dentistry is a medium which renews itself on an ongoing basis, and new discoveries are made all the time to make the processes involved faster, more effective, cheaper and safer. New innovations arrive on the scene regularly, and one of the newer methods to appear for teeth whitening is Internal Bleaching. This is not something that can be done on all teeth – indeed it may only be practised on devitalized teeth that have been party to root canal surgery and have become stained by fluids leaching in.

This process brightens teeth from the inside out. It involves drilling a hole into the tooth’s nerve area – the “pulp chamber” – and then cleaning inside the tooth. The root canal is then sealed and filled with a rubbery substance. A peroxide gel is then placed into the pulp chamber and works from this position to bleach the teeth from the inside out. This bleach can be left inside the teeth for several days and the patient left to go about their business – for this reason it is often referred to as “walking bleach”.

At the moment, no treatment like this exists for living teeth – but science continues to work on ways of making surgery and other treatments more effective. Therefore it cannot be too long before the treatment options for people looking to whiten their teeth develop still further and allow more diversity and better effectiveness in cosmetic dentistry. It will be interesting to see what is next.

Common Sense Leads To The Right Choice

With the level of choice available in the teeth whitening market today, it is very easy to choose the wrong product or service. Telling whether something is “good” or “bad” is not a simple matter of looking at how it is packaged or sold – indeed, there is a school of thought which would claim that the more attractively you package something the more you will be able to hide the fact that it is useless. As consumers, we need to pay closer attention and have a more enlightened approach to deciding where to spend our money.

Having your teeth whitened is often an expensive choice. The many options available to us as consumers are one thing, but if you see something at a lower price in one place than everywhere else, it is easy to arrive at the conclusion that the lower-priced service must automatically be worse. It’s not necessarily so. This means that you need to research your options.

Some people have found that for cosmetic dentistry processes their preferred choice is to go abroad. There is the question of paying for travel but, on the other hand, the treatment can be a lot cheaper depending on the country – and lose nothing in terms of quality. You can even combine the trip to get your teeth whitened with a holiday in the city where the treatment is carried out, making it a dual purpose journey. Whatever you do, though, it is important to be sure that you make an informed choice.

This Treatment Is Not For Everyone

As popular as teeth whitening has become, one thing that needs to be remembered is that it cannot be used by everyone. This comes as a disappointment to many, as the natural reaction to seeing the results of a successful treatment is that most people will consider having it themselves. However, there are some people who cannot, and must not have the treatment – because even if it works for them, the side-effects will be of a negative kind and will potentially cause more harm than having no treatment at all.

People under the age of 16 cannot have teeth whitening surgery. The fact of the matter is that at this age the nerves of the teeth are enlarged, and any treatment of the nature of tooth whitening will irritate those nerves or cause them to become hyper-sensitive in the medium term. Without question, this will result in pain and can be damaging to the future health of the teeth. There is no point in having a bright, gleaming smile if you are in so much pain that you cannot flash it.

Additionally, pregnant women and those who are lactating should not have the treatment. The active ingredient of the tooth-whitening agent can be absorbed and, while harmless to adults, can be harmful to an unborn child if passed through the placenta or to a newborn if taken through feeding. Even in the case of over-the-counter treatment with a less powerful formula, it is advisable to avoid treatment until such time as a baby has been weaned so that the danger is absolutely zero.

What To Eat After Getting Teeth Whitened

People who have had their teeth whitened will often be warned to avoid foods that stain their teeth at least for the near future. The first few weeks after teeth are whitened, the teeth will be sensitive and prone to staining, and it is wise to stay away from food and drink that you know will stain the teeth. Foods that do this include dark meat, spinach and blueberries. It is a matter of finding the staining foods in your diet and replacing them – in the short term at least – with foods that are non-staining.

Commonly, the foods and drinks that are earmarked as “staining” are ones which are dark in color and to some extent “wet”. Foods that contain juices can get into the grooves which may have been left by the bleaching – this goes for drinks too, so if you want to avoid staining it is important to at least temporarily avoid black coffee and red wine. Replacing these foods and drinks may involve some trial and error, but there are some better choices around.

Instead of eating beef, you should eat chicken or pork as these are light meats. Instead of drinking red wine, change to white wine. Replace blueberries with strawberries, spinach with celery and tomatoes with cucumber. You can maintain a balanced diet and keep your newly-bleached teeth looking white for longer. You will still need to brush your teeth and keep a dental hygiene regime going, but the effects will be much greater if you eat the right things.