The Dental Guide

 More and more people are choosing the least expensive way to whiten their teeth. Going to a dentist for whitening treatments can run into hundreds of dollars; and still cause chemical burns to the gums and the other mucous membranes of the mouth.  The dentist often applies a bleaching gel and then has you expose your teeth to a bright light to activate the bleaching ingredient. Some people are more sensitive than others and the treatment can cause chemical burns in the mouth.

We all want pearly white teeth; but the problem with that is that our teeth are not naturally that white to begin with. The effects of aging and our lifestyle have a lot to do with how white our teeth are. Our teeth are normally off-white, but the media would have you believe that natural is not white enough.

Those that don’t want to pay a dentist to whiten their teeth usually go to the corner drugstore and purchase a tooth whitening kit. The problem with many of the tooth whitening kits is that they contain caustic ingredients than can cause chemical burns to the mouth and gums. Most of the products have the same ingredient that many hair lightening products have, which is hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen peroxide that we buy in the brown bottle at the supermarket or pharmacy isn’t the same hydrogen peroxide that is in these tooth whitening products. The product in the brown bottle is a very dilute form of hydrogen peroxide, but the active ingredient in tooth whitening kits is much stronger.

Whitening gels and whitening strips can damage your teeth when used over time, and to have any noticeable results you have to use them fairly regularly. The problem being that as stains are removed from the teeth there may also be a minute layer of enamel being removed also. When tooth enamel is burned away, your teeth become more sensitive to heat and cold; the discomfort is a direct result from chemical burns. Not only are some people affected by sensitivity to heat and cold, but some folks are suffering constant tooth pain where nerve endings are exposed as a direct result of chemical burns to the teeth. The corrosive ingredients in tooth whitening products cause chemical burns to the teeth. The use of these products burns away layers of enamel.

If you must whiten your teeth from a kit or in your dentist’s office be sure that you have no dental caries. The active ingredients in the treatment can get into the insides of your teeth through your cavities which may cause tremendous pain. Chemical burns from tooth whitening products can burn the inside as well as the outer surfaces of your teeth; the only way to relieve this nerve pain is to have a root canal.

Chemical burns to the teeth and mouth occur because the 35 percent hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizing agent that burns through tooth enamel. In a dentist’s office the light used in the mouth increases the corrosiveness of the oxygen particles that inflicts chemical burns on the teeth. As a preventive measure for people who want to continue whitening their teeth, they should use fluoride toothpaste regularly. Fluoride enriched toothpaste helps to prevent tooth damage and it also helps reduce tooth sensitivity.

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