Before you can appreciate information about Deep Bleaching, you need to understand about teeth whitening in general.
People have different colors of teeth and different lightness and darkness of their teeth; just like people have different colors of skin, hair color and eye color; and different lightness and darkness of skin, hair and eyes. Dark teeth are NOT just due to staining foods and drinks over time.
Over the years the NATURAL colors, deeper within the teeth, get darker. Also stains not only accumulate ON the surface of the teeth, but soak deeply INTO the teeth to further darken teeth. This is why at age 40 you’ll see that your teeth are darker than they were when you were 16, even if you do not consume things like coffee, tea or red wine. But you’ll see they’re even darker if you DO consume those staining foods and drinks.
Teeth whitening works by using peroxide gels that give off oxygen. This oxygen, if it enters the tooth structure properly, breaks long-chain stain molecules into smaller pieces. The significance is that long-chain molecules in teeth are DARK. Little short molecules are white.
When you go to your dentist to have your teeth bleached in the dental office you’ll often find two things. 1) You’ll find that your teeth do not get all THAT white, and in many cases you’ll see nearly no color change at all, and if you do, much of that whiteness is gone by the next morning; and 2) Most dentists will then send you home with bleaching trays and bleaching gel.
If your teeth did not whiten much, the reason is that, like many, your teeth are not very permeable to oxygen. If they did whiten noticeably, but much of the whiteness was gone the next morning, it was because your teeth dehydrated during the bleaching procedure. Dehydration causes teeth to look MUCH lighter. Teeth dehydrate VERY quickly, but re-hydrate over several hours. So when you wake up and look in the mirror, your teeth have significantly re-hydrated and the whiteness is gone.
This has been a source of frustration to patients and dentists alike. Dentists have learned that to effect a genuine whitening, they need to send you home with bleaching trays and bleaching gel to use over several days or nights following the in-office bleaching session.
You may have noticed that after using bleaching trays, not only did your teeth not get as white as you’d like, but the portion of the teeth close to the gumline remained quite dark. This occurred because of two reasons. 1) The trays did not SEAL well and saliva got in under the trays, inactivating the bleach near the gumline; and 2) The enamel is thinner close to the gumline. Enamel is the lighter covering of the tooth. The structure under the enamel (called dentin) is much darker. So when the enamel is thinner there is more chance of the darker dentin showing through.
Was this the dentist’s fault for making trays that did not fit properly? No. ALL typical bleaching trays will leak. Dr. Kurthy was the first to design a technique to make what he calls Deep Bleaching Trays™ and to actively promote this design. Deep Bleaching Trays actually seal at the edge of the teeth, sealing in the bleaching gel and sealing out the saliva. This is just one of the important reasons that Deep Bleaching is so effective. Dr. Timothy Huckabee offers deep bleaching in his Southlake Texas location.
Dr. Timothy Huckabee practices Cosmetic Dentistry in Southlake Texas. He is a confessed teeth whitening gel obsessed dentist.
