Teeth whitening has become one of the first requests that dental patients have when visiting their dentist. Composite veneers often called dental or direct veneers are an excellent choice for teeth whitening.
Dental veneers are basically the thin shells of tooth-colored which are made up of translucent porcelain or composite resin. It can be customized to fit over your natural teeth to improve their shape, color, and overall appearance.
They can be used to fix chipped, stained, misaligned, worn down, uneven, or abnormally placed teeth. In order to maintain your whiter smile, a few precautions are to be undertaken after teeth whitening.
Whitening veneers with baking soda
Brushing teeth using baking soda is performed as an effective way to whiten teeth, but there are some counter opinions for the use of baking soda for whitening veneers as it will disrupt the ratio of good to bad bacteria in the mouth.
Straight baking soda, in powder form, is abrasive and can damage your teeth’ enamel.
However, the dissolved form found in toothpaste is not abrasive. One of the benefits of baking soda is that it is a buffer that fights the acids created by decay-producing bacteria.
Baking soda can be used with water to remove the stains on the surface of veneers, but if your goal is to remove deeper, older stains, then this method will not be effective.
It can also be used with hydrogen peroxide to enhance whitening effects; some encourage the use of lemon juice and strawberry for a similar effect.
Now it is commercially used in toothpaste and other teeth whitening products.
1- Toothpaste:
Whitening toothpaste strictly whitens and does not bleach your teeth, it has a mild abrasive effect and can lighten your teeth.
2- Mouthwashes:
Whitening mouthwash includes a small amount of peroxide and provides you with a bleaching effect.
3- Strips:
Whitening strips are generally thin pieces of plastic that are coated in peroxide.
If you attach these in front of your teeth for 30 minutes a day for about 2 weeks, veneers can whiten and the result lasts for around 4 months.
4- Gel:
Whitening gel can offer comparable results to strips. It depends upon the quality of the gel you choose. The gel is filled inside a tray and is fixed comfortably in your mouth.
You will wear the trays for 30 minutes to several hours every day depending on the dentist’s instructions. Gel treatment combined with laser techniques provides better results.
Can veneers be whitened by laser?
Laser teeth whitening may be an option available for your dental care, but it is not advised for everyone as it is one of the most expensive methods.
Bleaching using a hydrogen peroxide gel is applied to each tooth and heat generated by a laser enhances its effectiveness and ultimately speeds up the process.
Many manufacturers have developed bleaching products in combination with laser techniques. Among that Philips Zoom is the most well-known teeth whitening brand.
The treatment uses concentrated 25% peroxide gel, utilizes a proprietary blue light to stimulate the whitening process. Philips offers several options to meet the patient’s needs.
They can choose either office-based or home-based treatment. In home-based there are two types; day white maximum and night white maximum. The whitening gel has a unique formula to give you smoother and more sparking enamel.
Next comes Brite Smile, it is strictly an office-based treatment. It is in use for a decade. Like Philips Zoom, the combination of whitening gel and blue light is used to achieve dramatic results. The gel only contains about 15% peroxide.
Another option is Opalescence; offers office-based treatment with a powerful gel of 40% peroxide; despite that potassium nitrate is used to reduce sensitivity and added fluoride strengthens enamel and prevents decay.
LUMIBRITE is another brand specially designed to achieve dramatic results with minimal sensitivity. The treatment combines whitening gel with sapphire plasma arc curing & whitening light.
GLO science professional is the other option, uses a mouthpiece of Guided Light Optics (GLO) combined with whitening gel.
The mouthpiece delivers both heat and light to prevent oxygen from escaping from the area and maximize the strength of a gel.
The entire treatment takes only 40 minutes and gives a dramatic result. KoR whitening deep bleaching is an innovative treatment that combines office-based and home-based treatments and targets both intrinsic and extrinsic stains. It can lighten your teeth up to 16 shades; best of all the results stay permanent.
According to an experienced dentist over whitening can cause permanent enamel erosion, so proper dental care is required during whitening treatments. Cheek retractors, formulated soft or rubber dams to cover lips, tongue, and gums are used as a caution to prevent oral tissues from being damaged.
This treatment is prohibited during pregnancy because the chemicals contained in the whitening agent can harm your baby if swallowed.
Although laser use in dentistry is approved by the Food & Drug Administration, it doesn’t yet have the American Dental Association (ADA) seal of acceptance for safety and efficacy.
As always say “prevention is better than cure”. So keep away the products that cause yellowing your teeth. Maintaining proper oral hygiene is the best way to stay healthy and just don’t stop smiling!
