I am going to get a dental crown on a canine tooth. I’d like to whiten my other teeth before doing that. However, my dentist is having trouble advising me on how to go about it. Here are my questions:
How long should I touch-up? By that I mean the number of days or weeks.
How many hours each day should I wear the whitening during that time?
Is it necessary to stop whitening a certain length of time before appointment or can I immediately place the crown?
Eric
Dear Eric,
Home Bleaching Trays
I’m concerned that your dentist can’t answer these questions for you. They are pretty basic. The principle behind the answer is the longer you wear the teeth whitening gel each day, the faster your teeth will whiten. For example, if you wear the whitening trays one hour a day, it will likely take you many weeks to reach the level of whitening you want. On the other hand, if you wear the gel overnight, your teeth will whiten much faster.
My advice would be to wear the trays for as long as you can tolerate each day. That will allow you to whiten as quickly as you are able to. There is one definitive number, however, in all of this. That is how long you should wait between the whitening and the color matching of your dental crown. This would take about two weeks for the color to settle down. Once that happens, you can have your crown made.
This blog is brought to you by Parma Ridge Dentist Dr. Rebecca Gecovich.