Does tray teeth whitening always work?
How long can tray teeth whitening take?
While your dentist cannot know beforehand the precise level of whitening results you will achieve or how long it will take to realize them, they should be able to give you a general idea of what changes might be possible based on their experiences with other patients. To help you understand what types of results you might be able to obtain, some dentists will use a
computer imaging system to illustrate for you the degree of whitening they think is likely.
Tray teeth whitening systems utilizing a 10% carbamide peroxide whitener can usually be expected to make at least some improvement in shade for teeth found in all of the categories discussed above, however certain types of tooth darkness will be more resistant to whitening than others. Additionally, the results a person is able to obtain, and the time it takes to achieve them, will be dependent on their degree of compliance with their dentist's instructions.
Those people who feel that they were pleased with the shade of their teeth when they were younger but now, at an older age, have found that their teeth have yellowed somewhat will most likely find the results of a tray teeth whitening system very satisfactory. This type of staining, which is often due to exposure to chromogenic agents such as tea and coffee, is commonly resolved by two to six weeks of bleaching. Fairly dark tooth staining which has been caused primarily by a person's smoking might take upwards of three months of treatment to successfully whiten.
More difficult cases to bleach will be those instances where a person does not so much feel that their teeth have stained with time but instead were always too dark, even when they were younger. While tray teeth bleaching can be expected to make a shade improvement in these cases, the degree of whitening will be less predictable. Teeth falling into this bleaching category will be those with an inherently dark baseline color and those with tetracycline or brown fluorosis staining.
The total treatment time needed in these more stubborn cases can often range between two and six months. Satisfactory results might be obtained within this time frame or else a point reached where your dentist determines that, while your teeth have responded somewhat, more whitening is not likely.
Individually darkened teeth, such as those which have been traumatized or have had root canal treatment, can be resistant to bleaching with tray-based teeth whitening systems. Total treatment time for these types of cases could range between two and six months before satisfactory results are obtained, or else your dentist determines that it is unlikely that the tooth will whiten any further.
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Ingestion of excessive amounts of fluoride by children during their period of tooth development can cause a type of tooth staining termed "fluorosis". In its most common form fluorosis appears as chalky-white areas on a tooth. In more severe forms fluorosis can cause brown tooth staining and even result in tooth surface pitting. (Parents should be aware that a common source of fluoride ingestion can be when children swallow toothpaste. It has been suggested that children under the age of 5 swallow essentially all of the toothpaste placed on their brush.)
