Safe Ways to Whiten Your Teeth
We all want whiter teeth. A beautiful, clean, white smile is something that we all crave in this day and age. So what are the best practices for whitening teeth? While there are many trends and suggestions, we wanted to give you our professional opinions as dentists about what really works and what doesn’t work when whitening your teeth.
What to Avoid When Whitening Teeth 
• Zoom Whitening: In the Zoom Teeth Whitening System, a hydrogen peroxide gel is applied to your teeth while the dentist uses a UV lamp to break down the gel, allowing oxygen to break down the enamel and dentin of your teeth so that the brown spots in your teeth get bleached. Although Zoom is a popular type of in-house dental treatment for whitening teeth, we here at Victory Dental to not recommend it. It can cause severe nerve pain to the patient, as well as possible 3rd degree burns on your gums, tongue, and lips. It costs a lot of money for a one-time procedure with no real way to follow up or maintain the teeth whitening, and they will eventually go back to the way they were before the procedure.
• DIY Charcoal Teeth Whitening: Something that is trending with DIY teeth whitening is whitening one’s teeth with activated charcoal. While activated charcoal can temporarily clean surface-stains like coffee and plaque, it isn’t effective for actual teeth imperfections that are deeper than surface level stains. Also, charcoal could very well be gritty enough to damage enamel long-term, and there isn’t enough long-term research or studies that have effectively proven that charcoal doesn’t cause damage to your teeth. We would recommend being careful with this method, since we do not know long-term causes of brushing with activated charcoal.
How to Safely Whiten Your Teeth:
Right now, Victory Dental Group offers two types of whitening services, and both can be done at home after we instruct you how to do the procedure effectively.
• Whitening Strips: One of our options is $60 for 10 whitening strips—which are whitening strips we can recommend using that are a safe option. While there are many whitening strips on the market, consult us before you purchase some at your grocery story. All whitening strips are not created equal, and we will help steer you in a direction that will not destroy your teeth or gums long-term.
• Whitening Impressions: The other option we offer is to get impressions made in office, then ordering whitening gels. First, you get impressions made of your teeth in office, and then you’re able to use those impressions to maintain and whiten your teeth with whitening gels over the course of many years at home. Impressions will last forever, and they cost about $300 to make. So overall, it’s an amazing way to effectively know that you’ll be able to whiten and maintain your teeth effectively the rest of your life.
Ultimately, whitening your teeth is a really tricky thing because your teeth are very important to the overall health of your body. If you damage your teeth, gums, etc., while whitening on your own, you can cause health problems down the road, as well as irreparable damage to your teeth.
At Victory Dental, we’d always recommend coming to us with concerns or questions about whitening your teeth. We have years of experience, and we want you to do this in a safe, effective way that won’t damage your long-term dental health.