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Thoughts on Premium Home Teeth Whitening

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I’ve been wanting to do a smile makeover for a while. Recently, I received an offer in the mail for Premium Home Whitening. Then, I received a Groupon offer for the same thing. It is less than what my dentist charges. I was wondering if it will really work or if I will be wasting my money.

Katherine

Dear Katherine,

teeth whitening trays

I looked into this. There are some good and bad things about this. First the good. The whitening ingredient they use is 35% carbamide peroxide. This is a valid whitening ingredient and will whiten your teeth. That is great. Now for the less than good news. The light they advertise seems bogus. This makes me uncomfortable with the company. If they are willing to lie to patients to draw them in, how do we know their ingredients are what they say they are? I don’t like deception.

A second thing to consider is the whitening tray. When you get teeth whitening done with your dentist, he or she will prepare custom fitted trays. This both protects your gums for being irritated by the whitening gel as well as keeps the gel concentrated on your teeth by not leaking or by letting saliva in to dilute it.

The tray you get with this will not be not be custom fit. Instead, it will sort of fit. However, your saliva will weaken the gel meaning you won’t get as much whitening out of each kit as you would with your dentist.

You mentioned the price was more than your dentist, but did not say how much more. One thing I would do is tell your dentist how much the kit is and ask him if he can come close to that so you will be able to do the procedure with him under a professional’s care. My guess is if he is not willing to, some dentist will be.

If you are thinking about improving your smile, teeth whitening will make you and your teeth look younger. If you are looking for a complete smile makeover, the way to do that is with porcelain veneers. However, while teeth whitening can be done with any dentist, porcelain veneers require an expert cosmetic dentist. If you decide to go that route, my suggestion is you only do that with a dentist who is AACD accredited.

This blog is brought to you by Philadelphia Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Michael Weiss.

Tanda Pearl Ionic Teeth Whitening System

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I recently read an advertisement about a Tanda Pearl Ionic Teeth Whitening System. It said I could whiten my teeth in just 5 minutes a day.  I like that idea because the system I am using now aches my jaw and is aggravating my TMJ Disorder. Do you know if the advertisements about this system are accurate?

Laurie

Dear Laurie,

teeth whitening trays

I am glad you wrote because I think I can help you.  I looked up this system. It functions on the basic system that other professional teeth whitening systems use. It uses a peroxide gel that is placed in a bleaching tray. In that aspect it is fine. However, there are some differences you need to be aware of that could cause some issues.

First, the tray. This system uses just one tray that you bite down to form to your teeth. Here are my concerns about that. When you have trays made by a dentist, they are form-fitted to your specific bite. This keeps the gel from leaking out and saliva from leaking into the tray. Both of those things weaken the effectiveness of the teeth whitening. This means you will have to get more whitening gel than you normally would in order to get the same results.

However, there is another difference with the tray that will be a bigger problem for you. Custom-fitted trays can be worn anywhere and are more comfortable than most. With the Tanda Pearl System, there are not really trays as much as a single tray you have to bite down on the entire time to keep it in place.  Even for just five minutes, that is going to cause serious problems with your TMJ Disorder. Because of that, I would not recommend this system for you.

You did not mention what you were currently using, but if it isn’t a system through your dentist, that may be why you are experiencing the aching. Talk to your dentist about what is going on and have him make you trays that won’t ache your jaw when you wear them.

This blog is brought to you by Philadelphia Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Michael Weiss.

Dentist Says I Can’t Whiten My Teeth

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I have really ugly teeth and wanted to get them whitened. However, my dentist said my teeth are endogenous and because of that, I cannot get them whitened. Is that true? If so, is there anything I can do to make them look better? I am so embarrassed by my smile.

Kelly Anne

Dear Kelly Anne,

teeth whitening trays

There is always something you can do to make your teeth look better. I’m sorry your dentist was zero help to you. I am not crazy about it when dentists use clinical words with patients without explaining what it means. That doesn’t help you at all.

What he is trying to say is the stains on your teeth are endogenous, not your teeth themselves. Endogenous stains are simply stains that were acquired while your tooth was developing. There are two categories of this that dentists see most often.

The first is tetracycline stains. These are the result of taking the tetracycline medication during childhood while your teeth were still developing. Even professional teeth whitening does not make much headway with these type of stains. They are just too deep and dark.

The second is fluorosis stains. These are the result of consuming too much fluoride during your teeth’s development. While they are more superficial, teeth whitening is still not a good solution because the fluorosis stains usually result is splotched teeth. Because teeth whitening bleaches the teeth uniformly, the teeth will be whiter but still splotchy. That’s not an attractive look.

The Solution for Endogenous Teeth Stains

The best solution in both of these cases is to have porcelain veneers placed. These tiny wafers of porcelain that cover your teeth are the go-to procedure for celebrity smile makeovers. They can change anything you want about your smile, including the shape, size, and color.

The only real catch with these is it requires an advanced cosmetic dentist to give you beautiful results. Smile makeovers are not taught in dental school. It is up to the dentist how much training they invest in to do this type of work. Tetracycline stains, especially, are among the most difficult cases for a dentist to do. In your place, I would only go to an AACD accredited dentist.

This blog is brought to you by Philadelphia Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Michael Weiss.

Brown Spots on Teeth

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My teeth are very healthy. I’ve never even had a cavity. However, I have these ugly brown spots on several teeth, including my very front teeth. My dentist and I have been trying all the over the counter teeth whitening brands, but they all seem to make it look worse. My dentist is wondering if she should grind the brown spots off, but admitted she doesn’t know if it would work or how far she’d have to grind. That sort of makes me nervous. Would professional teeth whitening work any better?

Mazie

Dear Mazie,

teeth whitening trays

 

I am very glad you wrote. It sounds like you have a dentist who cares about you, but she is in way over her head. Please don’t let her experiment on you any longer. She will end up doing inadvertent permanent damage to your teeth.  Cosmetic dentistry isn’t taught in dental school. In order for dentists to learn these procedures, they have to take post-doctoral classes. To do it well they need a lot of time invested in the training. Your dentist hasn’t done that yet. That’s okay. Some dentists just prefer to be a general dentist and help people have healthy teeth. Obviously, together the two of you have accomplished that.

Teeth whitening, even professional strength, will not work on the type of stains you are dealing with. As you have discovered with the over-the-counter brands, it makes them look worse. This is because the whitening gel bleaches the teeth evenly. It doesn’t change the unevenness in the color.

Solution for Brown Spots

You have two good options available to you. The first is dental bonding. The second is porcelain veneers. If there are just a few brown spots and you are happy with every other aspect of your teeth, I’d recommend the dental bonding. It’s less expensive.

However, if the brown spots are extensive or if there are other things about your teeth you’d like to change then I’d recommend porcelain veneers. These are the go-to for total smile makeovers and can change the shape, size, and color of your teeth simultaneously. They are more expensive but do more and last years longer.

Finding a Qualified Cosmetic Dentist

Even though smile makeovers aren’t taught in dental school, there isn’t a recognized specialty for cosmetic dentistry either. That means it is up to the dentist how much, if any, cosmetic training they get before treating patients.  This makes it tricky for patients to know who can create beautiful smiles and who can’t.

I always suggest patients pick their dentist from the mynewsmile.com website. This site is run by a retired cosmetic dentist. He prescreens any dentist who wants to be listed to ensure they have not only the right technical knowledge but the artistry required to create a beautiful smile as well. Any dentists he lists will be able to give you the stunning smile you’ve always wanted.

This blog is brought to you by Philadelphia Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Michael Weiss.

Dentist Said there is no Color to Match my Teeth

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I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had a dental crown before and this one is on my very front tooth after a nasty fall. My dentist said that my teeth are so white that there is not a color to match a crown to it. He’s done the whitest shade available and it is still several shades darker than my teeth. He’s a new dentist for me because we just relocated. I just had to go to a dentist who saw new patients quickly for emergencies, so I don’t know much about him. I’m having my doubts about what he is saying, though. Is there no way to match white teeth?

Brianna

Dear Brianna,

I think what you are facing here is a dentist who may be a decent bread and butter type dentist but has no clue when it comes to dental aesthetics or cosmetic work. You are not going to have a beautiful, or even natural looking, dental crown done by him.

Standard Vita Shade GuideHere is where part of his confusion lies. Based on what you’ve said, he is still using the standard shade guide (pictured left). Before teeth whitening became both popular and affordable, this was the shade guide dentists turned to when they needed to match a dental crown to existing teeth.

A patient’s teeth would always fall somewhere close to one of these shades. Then, in the 1990s, teeth whitening skyrocketed. Dentists started seeing patients come in with teeth whiter than anything on their shade guides. This is because bleaching your teeth, doesn’t just whiten the stains. It can whiten your natural tooth structure as well. That means your teeth can actually become whiter than their natural white.

Eventually, a new shade guide addition came out that added some whiter shades to meet the demand for whiter teeth (pictured below).

updated Vita shade guide

Your dentist is facing an additional problem that he won’t know what to do with as well. Front teeth are harder to match. This is because the light hits them more directly revealing all the subtleties and variations in the shades and translucency. He will need to understand color theory and tinting in order to get a perfect match. That would have required extensive post-doctoral training in cosmetic dentistry, which I sincerely doubt he’s done.

In your place, I would either look for a dentist who has reached accreditation with the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. AACD accredited dentists are the top 1% of cosmetic dentists in the world. If there isn’t one in a reasonable distance to you, then another good resource for finding excellent cosmetic dentists is the mynewsmile.com “Find a cosmetic dentist” link.  They prescreen all dentists who want to be listed there for their technical knowledge and training, as well as the artistry of their results.

This blog is brought to you by Philadelphia Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Michael Weiss.

Tooth Whitening Has Always Been Popular

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The most popular Cosmetic Dentistry technique in the world is tooth whitening, but teeth bleaching certainly isn’t new, in fact, for thousands of years, people all over the planet resorted to some pretty unpleasant tactics when it came to their pearly whites.

The ancient Egyptians used ground pumice and wine vinegar to make a paste to whiten teeth while the ancient Romans preferred human urine. In the 16 th century, barbers got into the act adding tooth whitening to the mix. After a shave and a haircut, barbers would file down clients teeth before soaking with acid. This worked quite well for tooth whitening, but because this method of tooth whitening took the enamel as well, tooth decay was the price one had to pay for tooth bleaching.

These days, thanks to modern Cosmetic Dentistry, you do not have to do what your ancestors did to get that million-dollar smile. Over the counter tooth whitening products account for millions of dollars in sales every year, but because those products are made for the masses, you may not be getting the results that you should.

Talk to your Cosmetic Dentist in East Montgomery County about Venus® Teeth Whitening. Available from Dr. Michael Weiss this chair side tooth bleaching system could give you that movie star smile or natural smile that you always wanted.

Venus® Teeth Whitening is an in office treatment that is fast, effective and affordable. All it usually takes is just one in office treatment and subsequent at home bleaching sessions with your take-home tooth whitening kit to give you your new smile.

Your actual tooth whitening appointment starts with the application of a special hydrogen peroxide gel to your teeth. Almost immediately your teeth. Great care is taken so there is very little tooth sensitivity or discomfort.

Although your teeth are ready for a night out on the town, it does not stop there. Your Cosmetic Dentist, Dr. Weiss and his caring team will supply you with a tooth whitening kit so that you can maintain your new smile in the comfort of your home. All you have to do is fill your custom whitening trays with a special whitening gel and wear them for a set amount of time to keep your new gorgeous smile white and bright.

Stop wasting your money on over the counter tooth whitening products and schedule an appointment for Venus® Teeth Whitening with Dr. Weiss today.