Whiter teeth are probably the most common aesthetic request that patients have.

Teeth are generally the whitest they will be when they first erupt into your mouth and are perfectly healthy.  So it is only natural that we associate white teeth with health.

Generally, most people think of whitening as simple bleaching of teeth but how teeth need to be whitened depends on the cause of the staining.

Stains are either:

Surface Stains

Internal Stains

Stained Decay

Filling Stains

Cracks

Root Canal therapy stains

 Today I will talk about Surface Stains

Surface stains are the easiest to remove and the easiest way to whiten teeth.  This is a build up of minerals from your saliva and pigments from your food.  Since these sit on the surface of the teeth, this can easily be removed by having your teeth scaled and polished by a dentist or therapist.

There are also health reasons for removing this sort of stain.  It tends to accumulate near the gum line and can cause the gums to become infected in some patients.  This can lead to loss of the bone holding the teeth in.

Surface stains will need to be removed every three to six months.  Some people are prone to them and some are not.  Things like coffee, tea, curry, red wine and other heavily pigmented foods will tend to increase the amount of surface stain.

The good news is that most people who get a lot of surface stain are less prone to cavities.

If you are getting your teeth scaled and polished, your dentist or therapist should be probing the gums to check for periodontal infections and pocket depths, and they should scale the entire mouth including the back teeth, and underneath the gums.  If they are only scaling around the lower front teeth, they may not be scaling the mouth thoroughly enough.

By law, most dentists will be obliged to do a full periodontal charting every few years.  This includes probing six points around every tooth to make sure that neither the gum or bone is infected.

Whitening the teeth by scaling is rarely painful.  However, there are a small number of people who need to have their gums or teeth numbed up to have them scaled or polished comfortably.  There is also a small number of people who are so anxious about any dentistry that they require sleeping tablets to get their scaling done.

Removing surface stains starts from $161
Your health fund may or may not pay anything toward scaling and polishing teeth.  Consider joining our membership plan which is much better value.  Health funds have huge profits to make and they make them by giving you less money than you give them.

Read more about teeth whitening here or give the Harris Dental team a call on  07 4158 5813  to make an appointment.

Teeth Whitening Bundaberg