Disadvantages of Tooth Whitening

Who doesn't want a beautiful smile? A bright and beautiful smile is everybody's dream. A beautiful smile can be achieved when you have white teeth. White teeth will not only give you beautiful smile but also make you more confident. When you are out for an interview your smile may help you to win half of the battle. Those people whose teeth are darkened due to age, coffee, tea or smoking or other factors are the best candidates for tooth whitening.

Tooth whitening products may help you in whitening the teeth. There are varieties of tooth whitening products available each one having its own advantages. But along with the advantages, there are some disadvantages associated with tooth whitening. Here we are going to discuss some of the disadvantages of tooth whitening.

Firstly, we will start with the disadvantages of tooth whitening process itself. The main disadvantage of tooth whitening process is its side effects. There may be an uncomfortable sensitivity in your teeth. These side effects are temporary and do not necessarily occur with all methods of tooth whitening.

Bleaching is the most commonly used tooth whitening process due to its low cost. Bleaching is a very effective tooth whitener, but there are some short-term disadvantages like sore teeth or gums resulting from it. But these effects are temporary and disappear when use of bleach is discontinued. Bleaching may not be effective if there is a serious discoloration of teeth. And also we can't predict exactly how much it will whiten our teeth.

When we use peroxides whiteners for tooth whitening, care must be taken that it must be in contact with the tooth's surface for a required duration of time. If you remove it a bit early, the whitening effect will be less and may take an extended number of treatments.

A delivery appliance called mouth tray is also used for tooth whitening. In this tooth whitening technique, a bleaching gel is placed into a plastic tray, which is then placed over patient's teeth. The disadvantage of this tooth-whitening technique is that some patient's may experience discomfort from wearing the mouth tray. This can happen if the tray is not perfectly aligned with the teeth.

Tooth whitening strip is another delivery appliance with the help of which we can deliver a bleaching agent to the surface of teeth. In this technique, one side of the plastic strip is soaked with a bleaching agent and is placed on the tooth's surface. The disadvantage of using strips is that they can only be used to whiten a person's front teeth. In both of these delivery appliances there is no direct contact of whitening agents with the teeth. Therefore they are less effective than whitening agents. Also the strip can move from its position making a discomfort.

Another disadvantage associated with tooth whitening is the occasional development of discolored spots on the teeth. It looks as if some parts of your teeth have been whitened while other parts have not. This happens since some parts of your teeth may respond differently to the whitening agent causing discolored spots.