Teeth whitening?

[bonnibaby]

Has anyone had this done?
Can you recommend a good one?

I would say DON'T go for the one where you wear the gumshields overnight for a week - go for the all-done-in-an-hour type things. The former made my gums bleed and I couldn't eat or drink, so never used it again (had spent quite a lot of money on it too).

I had BriteSmile (I think that's what it was called) done a couple of years ago. It cost £300 and took an hour in the dentist chair while they painted on the substance (bleach I suppose) and shone blue light on my teeth to activate it. There were three cycles of about 20 minutes. Quick and painless.

They warned of possible teeth sensitivity for a brief period afterwards but I didn't get any.

Definitely a good result - there were before and after photos which showed the difference. It's stain-removal basically, and apparently works best on people smoke (I'm an ex), drink tea, coffee or red wine. However I don't drink any of those and was still delighted with the results.

I would recommend it, and I'm one of these people who hate dentists. I'd seen the leaflet at the super-dooper dentist surgery when I was sent to get a tooth removed under sedation.

theinsider - thanks for that, I am off to the dentist for a check up on thursday and was going to book myself in for that treatment, even more determined to now. I don't smoke, drink too much tea/coffee or red wine but feel like I could do with a little freshening

I have been thinking of having it done too for a while but is there any evidence to suggest it can weaken the enamel on your teeth? That is the only thing that worries me about it.

My dentist told me that it might cause problems on one of my teeth that is darker as it has been weakened and might die . He said the procedure could cause nerve damage and speed up the dying of the tooth......or something along those lines.

suwoo! Did he suggest any alternative?

No! We joked that I could get a spray tan as that makes my teeth look whiter than white. At least I know he's not in it for the money. I've decided its not worth the risk.

Now I think of it the dentist did say it wouldn't work on one of my front teeth which had previously had root canal treatment on, ie the nerve removed. I can't remember why though. He pointed out it was already slightly darker than the others even before treatment. I decided to go ahead anyway on the basis that if it was already a different colour from the others then nothing would be changing, just the rest of my teeth being whiter, iyswim? Obviously not a big difference as never thought about it again until now.

The colour change, whilst noticible to me and on the photos, was not obviously drastic. I didn't tell anyone I was having it done except dh, and then close family afterwards. I wanted to see if anyone commented I was looking well, without quite realsing what was different. I don't think anyone did though!

I felt more confident and was very pleased.