Whitening
With teeth whitening there are two available options, in-office whitening and in-home whitening. In-office whitening would yield the quickest result but has a degree of tooth sensitivity that some patients do not like. In home whitening systems consist of customized trays or over the counter products. The take home trays are made from personalized impression moulds and are customized to your teeth. The whitening gel used with these trays come in various concentrations of hydrogen peroxide, lesser concentrations for the hyper-sensitive teeth and stronger concentrations for more resilient teeth.
In-office teeth whitening typically takes 2-3 hours and uses a higher concentration of hydrogen peroxide, 35-40%. Thee does exist varying degrees of post whitening sensitivity, but it is dependent on the individual. In office whitening will yield the quickest result.
In-Office Whitening
In-office whitening is the fastest method to have your teeth whitened. It is an in office procedure and takes roughly 1.5-2.0 hours to complete. At the completion of this process there will be a 1 week delay to match the actual shade (color) of your teeth for the prosthesis. The reason for the delay is that the tooth whiting procedure pulls all the debris from the tooth surface off, including the moisture of the tooth. The dehydrated tooth will look chalky white immediately following the procedure but will rehydrate in 1 weeks time.
Take Home Whitening Trays
The take home trays are a great alternative but does require a more disciplined approach as this method calls for 30-60minutes/day for 14 days. So this method depends on the frequency that you will be able to do this at home on your own. These trays are included in the ZOOM process as well, because once you whiten you will likely go back to doing normal rings during your day. This includes eating and drinking food that may stain your teeth again. Its always good to have these around incase you will need a booster session for whitening.
Take home customized trays have an equally effective outcome as in-office whitening but is more dependent on patient compliance. These take home products typically use concentrations of 16-22% hydrogen peroxide.
Over the counter products are the slowest acting only because the concentration of hydrogen peroxide is the weakest.
Over the counter products can have as high as 10% hydrogen peroxide, these products work much slower than the above mentioned ones. Although they are the least expensive, the negative aspect is that they take the longest to work.