I’m Dr. Chris Lewandowski from Princess Center Dentistry. I’m offer cosmetic dentistry in Scottsdale Arizona. Today, we’re doing a short video on teeth whitening; specifically teeth
whitening and maybe who should avoid it.

Almost everybody is eligible for teeth whitening, at least as adults. Typically in my office, we recommend that you’re 14 years of age or older and that’s just because baby teeth are teeth when they first erupt the nerves are really big in those teeth and the odds of you becoming highly sensitive to a lot of the tooth whitening products is high. So, after age
fourteen, we find that the tolerance is similar to that of other adults.

So, who should? Well, everybody’s eligible for whitening. Who who should do it and who should avoid it?

Anybody who wants to whiten or brighten the color of their teeth to get rid of superficial stains like from coffee, tea, or sodas or even some food, wine anybody who wants to remove those stains should try teeth whitening.

With the exception being people that have restorations in the front specifically made of porcelain. So those would be crowns or veneers. Uh and in particular when there’s just one or maybe two of them and they’re not symmetrical or in the same spots. Um for instance if you have a single veneer on a front tooth. Um if you whiten your teeth. Everything will get white except for that veneer.

And in a lot of cases that will make that veneer stand out are glow. Which is probably not an effect that you’re looking for. Uh the same thing can happen to a crown. So anything that’s porcelain won’t respond to the whitening agents. And they won’t change color at all. Where as everything else around that tooth will. And as the hue or the value brightens up and the the crown or the restoration doesn’t. You can see a discrepancy can form between those and make the existing restorations stand out which is again not a result that we’re looking for. So, you need to be careful if you have porcelain or glass restorations in the front. Um with that said, composites. So, any kind of filling materials are generally okay to whiten and they do respond although they may not respond the same as your actual tooth structure or the enamel. Um nobody can truly guess how white restorations
will get without you doing that and seeing yourself. So, if you’re, if you do have existing compositive front and you’re worried about how white they might get, I would suggest doing that whitening at the dental office in increments so that they can control and view the response that’s happening to the teeth and to the fillings and if there is a discrepancy that’s beginning to form to go and stop that procedure at that point and discuss your options.

So, hopefully that’s of some value. Again, if you have porcelain restorations in the front like veneers or crowns, you might want to think twice about whitening but the understanding those materials will not change color. Okay, so hopefully that’s some more information for people to make an educated decision on teeth whitening and hopefully that’s helped somebody.

Again, I’m Chris Lewandowski from Princess Center Dentistry in Scottsdale. If you’re interested, check out our page on teeth whitening.