Ways to whiten your teeth

A common desire of patients is to have their teeth a brighter shade.  Typically this can be achieved in several ways.

1. First is by a professional in office whitening.  This is a great way to get a quick couple of shades by getting the surface of the tooth whitened.  In our office we spend about 1 hour with this procedure and get about 2-3 shades brighter for most patients.  Since the whitening agent is so strong it needs to be done in office to avoid burning the rest of the mouth.
2. Second is by making custom trays to wear at home.  Some of the benefits to this method is that the longer slower whitening can get deeper into the tooth and give some additional results you can not get from in office whitening.  You can also use the trays for other things such as fluoride gel.
3. Third stock trays are a popular trend now.   This includes whitening strips.  Other companies make similar whitening products we use opalescence which are the same makers of our in office and take home tray whitening products.
4. Fourth is by touch up products.  I will group most other products in this section since there is a plethora of options including: tooth pastes, on the go pins, gum, mouth rinses and the list can continue on.  These may not get a lot done for you unless you have already whitened your teeth and you want to help maintain your smiles new brightness.

There are also some ways which you should not whiten your teeth:

Chemical burn of the gums from hydrogen peroxide

1. Bleaching your teeth with bleach.  A common term for tooth whitening is bleaching your teeth. When you whiten your teeth there is not any bleach involved.  In fact using bleach is very toxic, will burn your gums (if not worse) and will not result in a brighter smile.
2. Using hydrogen peroxide to whiten your teeth.  The concentrations on hydrogen peroxide sold at the store will also burn your gums and create very sensitive teeth.  Whitening agents use a peroxide to whiten your teeth so hydrogen peroxide will get your teeth whiter but the cons of damaging your gums and creating very sensitive teeth can be avoided by other whitening agents.
3. Baking soda is a common one I hear of patients using to clean their teeth to make them brighter.  Baking soda is very abrasive and will not only remove stain from your tooth but it will move some of the actual tooth.

A few random facts about whitening your teeth:

1. Most modern whitening products contain a tooth desensitizer.  This is because whitening products naturally create tooth sensitivity. So something needs to counter that sensitivity.
2. Tooth brightening is probably a better term.  If your teeth looked more white they would also look odd and dull.  This is because the tooth is partly clear and some colors, such as reds and blues, appear in small amounts naturally to help the teeth to look brighter.  Think of a toilet bowl, a very solid white, and it would look horrible as the shade of your teeth.
3. There are some stains that will not whiten by these traditional methods.  They include fluoride stains, tetracycline staining and demineralized teeth. There are other ways to deal with these stains but that is a topic for another day.