What is Tooth Whitening?
We all want a beautiful smile! But sometimes, stained or discolored teeth can make us want to avoid showing a toothy grin.
Many factors contribute to stained teeth, including aging, smoking, and certain medications. Drinking coffee, soda, tea, or red wine can also cause teeth to lose their luster.
The improvement you can expect from a tooth whitening or bleaching procedure varies. However, in every case, we do notice a whiter and brighter result.
Zoom! In-Office Whitening
Philips Zoom! WhiteSpeed in-office tooth whitening is a procedure designed to lighten the color of your teeth using a combination of a hydrogen peroxide gel and a specially designed ultraviolet lamp.
The Zoom! treatment involves using the gel and lamp in conjunction with each other, to produce maximum whitening results in the shortest possible time.
During the procedure, the whitening gel will be applied to your teeth and your teeth will be exposed to the light from the Zoom lamp for three sessions of 20 minutes each.
During the entire treatment, a plastic retractor will be placed in your mouth to help keep it open and the soft tissues of your mouth (lips, gums, cheeks and tongue) will be covered to ensure they are not exposed to either the gel or light. Lip balm (SPF rating 30+) may also be applied as needed and you will be provided an ultraviolet light filter for your eyes.
After the treatment is completed, the retractor and all gel and tissue coverings will be removed from your mouth. Before and after the treatment, the shade of your upper-front teeth will be assessed and recorded.
Take-Home Whitening
We also provide take-home whitening trays with our Zoom! procedure, to maximize the whitening potential.
In this system, impressions of your teeth are taken to make custom whitening trays. When the trays are delivered, instructions on using the whitening gel are provided. We initially provide you with 4 tubes of gel, but we have extra whitening gel in our office for purchase as needed.
We recommend that patients use the trays once or twice daily for over a week. In rarer cases, we may recommend the trays be used for up to six weeks.
Depending upon your habits and the passage of time following the procedure, the whiteness of your teeth may “fade back” a bit. The beauty of having take-home trays is that when you notice that your smile could be whiter, you can wear your take-home trays for a session or two to achieve the results that you had before.
Offering Our Patients a Boost
For those who have whitening trays for use at home, we offer the ability to whiten in our office with a stronger bleaching gel than you have been able to use at home. Following a preventive visit, at the same appointment time, we can provide to you this boosting whitening procedure lasting 35 minutes.
Patients find their teeth to be noticeably whiter and brighter following their cleaning and boost whitening.
Whitening Prior to Crowns and Veneers
Many patients ask if whitening systems also whiten existing dental work, like crowns, fillings, and veneers.
Whitening systems affect only natural tooth structure. As a result, existing dental work does not change color. As a result, existing dental work may look yellower following teeth whitening.
Along the same lines, if patients are considering dental care, particularly in the front of the mouth, they should consider if they would ever want to whiten their teeth. If so, we recommend whitening prior to work such as fillings, bonding, crowns, veneers, or laminates done in the front of the mouth.
In that way, the new restorations can match the color of the newly whitened teeth.
Would you like to have a whiter, brighter smile? Request an appointment today or call us to schedule your next visit!
