A single smile can brighten up the entire look on your face. What if you’re controlling this smile-conscious for showing off your yellow teeth? If that is the case then you should know that dentistry has done wonders in bringing back your beautiful smiles. One of the latest advancements in this field is Cosmetic dentistry.
Dentists guaranty on putting up a beautiful pearly white smile on your face through teeth whitening process. If you’re unaware of this procedure, then read below:
What is Cosmetic Tooth Whitening?
Tooth whitening is a process of lightening the teeth by removing discoloration and removal of stains. Tooth whitening is amongst the most popular cosmetic dental procedures. This procedures improves your teeth look and is not in fact a one-time process, rather repeated sittings are required for maintaining the achieved color and look.
What Is Tooth Whitening Used For?
The tooth has an outer layer called enamel, the light reflects off this layer after combining with dentin (the color under this layer) to give color to the teeth. Enamel however is gene affected and follows genes for thickness and smoothness. If enamel is thin then it will show more color of dentin, while its smoothness will also affect the reflection of light.
Everyday a new coating is formed on enamel that picks up stains. The stains or the yellow color of the teeth appears due to several reasons; the major of course is:
- use of tobacco
- Use of dark colored liquids as tea, coffee, red wine and cola etc.
- Improper dental care
- Aging process- enamel becomes thinner and dentin becomes darker
There are however stains within the tooth, called intrinsic stains. Such stains are caused due to other factors as exposure to too much fluoride and tetracycline antibiotics. The medicine intake can affect a child’s teeth especially if they are taken during pregnancy or by a child who is younger than 8 years of age. Teeth whitening are more effective for dealing with stains on the surface.
Preparation for Tooth Whitening Procedure
Some dental issues that exist in advance can affect the tooth whitening process. For instance, if you have cavities on your teeth then they need to be treated before the whitening procedure. Otherwise, whitening solution will enter into the decayed areas and in case if gums have receded as well, then despite the entrance of whitening solution into the inner areas, the teeth may still appear yellow or discolored.
It is essential to treat other issues prior to taking this procedure as the result of teeth whitening can be sensitive teeth’s. Generally before starting this procedure, the dentist photographs your teeth, examine them, and ask questions for the cause of staining. Then comes the cleaning process, once the teeth are cleaned, the whitening process takes place.
How is Tooth whitening Performed?
Cosmetic tooth whitening as performed at Rensselaer Dentist by Dr. Jordan Balvich is of two types; vital whitening and non vital whitening. Vital whitening is only performed on teeth having live nerves while non vital tooth whitening is generally performed on teeth that have root canal treatment done on them. Let’s discuss them one by one:
Vital Tooth Whitening- This is the most common tooth whitening procedure that uses a gel and is directly applied on the tooth surface. The gel does have hydrogen peroxide to some extent. It can take place at home or at dental clinic, varying with the type of gel used.
The procedure can take 30 to 90 minute in total and require 1 to 3 appointments to complete one session. The numbers of visits however depend completely on the method used for the whitening process and the kind of stains your teeth have.
The gums around the teeth get covered by a substance and the whitening agent is applied. There are different kinds of whitening agents; some get activated with the help of laser lights while some just use the heat from these lights to get activated.
After applying the whitening agent, light is shined on the teeth and if the teeth are badly discolored, the dentist will ask you to continue the bleaching process at home for a few days or weeks. For the home whitening process, your dentist will take the impressions of your upper and lower teeth’s and will make custom mouth pieces for you.
The mouth pieces help keeping the whitening agent in tact to your teeth. However, the mouth pieces have a reason to be applied on the teeth-they get filled with the whitening gel and wearing them for three to four hours does the bleaching process.
You can also buy the whitening products from counter and you also have whitening toothpastes. They however will take a longer time to work then the cosmetic teeth whitening performed by your dentist.
Non-Vital Tooth Whitening- When tooth get treated with root canal process and has dead nerves, then the staining would be appearing from the inside. In this case your dentist will use a different procedure to whiten your teeth-the non vital teeth whitening.
Whitening agent is placed inside the teeth and temporary filling is placed over it. The tooth is kept in the same way for a few days and it stays this way until the desired result from the tooth is achieved.
About Author
Addison Dolan is known as working as Content Strategist; her interest is to write about medicine and technology and she has written around 300 articles. Her goal is to educate people about various health conditions, beauty and Dental surgery. She is a passionate writer. This article she is published on behalf of Rensselaer Dentist, general and cosmetic dentistry located in downtown Rensselaer since 1992.