Tooth Whitening – It can be a simple, safe and quick way to refresh your smile. It’s one of the most popular cosmetic dental procedures and the results can be quite dramatic. An hour in a dental chair can transform stained or discolored teeth into a whiter smile.

Teeth Whitening treatments are designed to whiten your own teeth without any artificial additions. There are several ways dentists can whiten your teeth:

1. With very high peroxide gel concentrations, the dentist may very carefully apply the gel and use some heat from a light source (sometimes a laser is used) to whiten the teeth in a short time. This technique is not common and is usually expensive.
Plastic trays are custom-made by your dentist using models of your teeth.
   a. Sometimes dentists will ‘kick-start’ the whitening in the surgery with high-strength bleach gels in the trays.
   b. This is followed by home treatments you do yourself using safe-strength gels. Home treatment alone is the most popular and least expensive method.

Home bleaching works in most cases although the result depends on the initial level of staining of the teeth and the type of staining. It is less predictable on teeth that contain some specific discolorations such as those caused by tetracycline intake in childhood. Home bleaching usually takes about two weeks, wearing trays either during sleep or for a few hours a day, depending on the technique. Home bleaching will not whiten fillings, and it may be necessary to have visible tooth colored fillings replaced with ones that more closely match the final tooth color after whitening is completed.