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Why
consider getting you teeth bleached (or whitened, a term commonly
interchanged with bleaching)?
There
are all kinds of answers in medical and dental journals. Those answers
may be correct, but Drs. Steve Gustafson and Shari Morningstar think
the real answer connects with people on a plain, fundamental level.
“First
impressions are very, very important,” Dr. Gustafson says. He sees
bleaching as the next step in an evolutionary process to improve a
person’s best feature – their smile.
There’s
a good deal of recent history to back up that statement.
A
couple decades ago, people started paying more attention to their
smile, either by hiding or improving it. Bonding, crowns and veneers
started becoming popular procedures to fix and level off crooked,
chipped teeth, or fill in the gaps between teeth.
Those
procedures have become more commonplace today, and have lead to
bleaching.
“It
truly is a matter of improving self-esteem and self-confidence,” Dr.
Gustafson says. “You wouldn’t believe how many people are afraid to
smile because their teeth are yellowed, they know it, and they’re
embarrassed about it.”
Dr.
Morningstar, in a previous conversation, recalls a patient who actually
tried to talk with her lips covering her teeth the majority of the
time, because they were badly stained.
Bleaching
isn’t really just a cosmetic procedure. It’s more like the process
of growing up and realizing there are times when blue jeans just
won’t do – it’s time to bring out the business suit, or maybe
even the tuxedo.
People
who make their living meeting the public – sales representatives,
public speakers, on-air personalities, models – consider bleaching
their teeth a natural part of grooming.
Think
about these facts:
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Something
– from chocolate to tobacco, coffee, tea, smoking, red wine, and
even raspberry and blueberry jams – is going to discolor your
teeth. Your teeth are not impervious enamel – their surface is
porous.
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You
can include tetracycline in the list of things that can stain your
teeth. If your doctor regularly prescribed that antibiotic for you
prior to your teenage years, before your teeth matured, then your
teeth probably have a grayish cast to them. That’s the result of
the antibiotic, and for a dentist it’s one of the most challenging
stains to remove. It’s called an intrinsic stain.
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“Age
stains are the easiest to remove,” Dr. Gustafson says. “The
stains people acquire as a part of living their lives can be
corrected remarkably easily.”
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Many
drug stores, among other places (The Journal of the Michigan Dental
Associaton noted a hair salon in Michigan was featuring
bleaching services), offer bleaching products ranging from rinses to
kits where a mold of the teeth is made, so users can load the
product into the mold and wear it overnight. The journal’s
position is that while these products may in fact be endorsed by the
American Dental Association, they still require a skilled, trained
individual to guarantee good results.
As
the journal says, “It affirms dentistry’s conviction that the
performance of teeth bleaching that involves the taking of intraoral
impressions for the purpose of fabricating a custom bleaching tray and
the dispensing of a bleaching tray is solely within the scope and
practice of dentistry.”
Just
because your hair stylist can lighten your hair doesn’t mean he or
she can lighten your teeth. Crowns, veneers and caps will respond
differently to bleaching – these are things your dentist will know,
but your hair stylist probably will not.
A
bad haircut will grow out in about four weeks. A bad bleach job on your
teeth will last a lot longer, and cost a lot more to fix.
Dr.
Gustafson says most bleaches have a common base of hydrogen peroxide;
some use carbamide peroxide. It takes an expert to determine the best
preparation for the client. “The chemicals are similar, but they are
not the same,” Dr. Gustafson says.
It’s
been Dr. Gustafson’s experience that clearly noticeable results
happen very rapidly with bleaching. “We’re talking 10-14 days to a
bright smile with the preparations we use,” he says.
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