Brilliant white teeth
- today's dream come true
Tooth Whitening (Bleaching)
Why do teeth discolour or yellow?
Discolouration can have several causes:
- Natural enamel deficiencies
- Taking certain antibiotics (Tetracycline) during the development phase of your teeth
- Dental fluorosis through overdose of fluoride
- Dead pulp or root canal treatment
- Pigmentation from food or drink such as tea, coffee, red wine, and tobacco.
- Ageing: teeth darken with age. Everyone has an individual, natural tooth shade, which varies from person to person.
What bleaching techniques are available today?
Today's bleaching techniques divide into the following categories:
- External Bleaching (surface bleaching) of vital teeth
- Internal Bleaching (bleaching from the inside) of teeth with dead roots
To whiten vital (living) teeth, we treat the outer surface, a so-called External Bleaching. There are two different methods:
- Rapid Bleaching (Power Bleaching, In-Office Bleaching) in the dental office
- Home Bleaching performed by the patient. With the Home Bleaching method, the patient wears at night a made-to-measure, transparent bleaching tray filled with bleaching gel.
The BriteSmile® Method
The Home Bleaching method takes several weeks to complete. Many patients encounter problems with tooth hypersensitivity during the treatment that does not always provide the desired results. Therefore, we chose the effective and gentle BriteSmile® system for our dental office, giving good and long-lasting results in just 60 minutes treatment time (90 minutes including preparation).
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| BriteSmile® bleaching appliance | |
BriteSmile® is the market leader in tooth whitening in the USA. This system has seen over 250,000 successful applications so far.
How does tooth whitening with BriteSmile® work?
Firstly, the teeth are professionally cleaned and scaled. The gums are then coated with a protective lacquer, leaving just the teeth free. Following this, the light-activated bleaching gel is applied to the front surface of the teeth. The special BriteSmile® lamp is positioned directly in front of the patient's mouth, exposing the teeth to intense plasma light for 20 minutes. During this time, the patient must wear protective goggles. This special light source emits almost no inconvenient heat radiation during treatment. The procedure is repeated twice more, each time with fresh bleaching gel, making the total treatment time 60 minutes. After treatment, the protective lacquer is removed from the gums and any remaining bleaching gel washed away.
What are the advantages of BriteSmile® tooth whitening?
Vitapan shade guide
- This is an effective bleaching method that brings about a whitening effect of eight shades of the Vitapan shade guide in only 60 minutes exposure time.
- BriteSmile® bleaching is clinically tried, tested, and proved harmless. (scientific documentation)
- The special light-activated formula means BriteSmile® is effective using only 15% active agent, whereas most other power bleaching substances use 35% bleaching gel.
- This means fewer unpleasant side effects such as hypersensitive tooth necks.
Oxidation effect
of carbamide
peroxide
bleaching gel
The bleaching gel contains 15% carbamide peroxide. This agent has been tried and tested in over 20 years of tooth whitening. It releases hydrogen peroxide, which penetrates the tooth and breaks pigments into colourless compounds by oxidation.
Does bleaching damage the teeth?
Scientific studies unanimously prove that bleaching under a dentist's supervision causes no long-term damage or loss of substance to either teeth or gums. At the most, there may be increased sensitivity of the tooth necks, which subsides after treatment. This mostly applies to periodontitis patients with gingival regression and exposed roots.
Teeth before and after bleaching
Devitalized right incisor before
and after internal bleaching
How long does the bleaching effect last?
Normally, the effect will last between three to five years. After this period, bleaching can be repeated without problem.
Devitalized and root-canal-treated teeth have a tendency to discolour after some time and take on a darker (browner) shade caused by the products of decomposition. This leads to a loss of aesthetics in the anterior region. Internal bleaching is the cure for this problem. This is performed by opening the devitalized tooth (from the rear, in this way not visible) and applying a special bleaching agent. The opening is then sealed with a temporary filling. This procedure takes about ten minutes and is repeated every three to five days until the desired shade is achieved.
The bleaching effect lasts for several years and often saves the tooth from crowning.
Dental Aesthetics
The methods for tooth whitening described above are considered a part of Aesthetic Dentistry: Further information on Dental Aesthetics.