| | When I was 8 years old I was playing on a frozen puddle next to a slide
on the school play ground. I was there with my sister and our
friend Amy. Then a tragic accident occurred: I slipped on the ice
(duh!) and fell, hitting the slide with my front tooth (the #7 for all
those dentists reading my blog). My tooth chipped I bled a
lot. I think part of it actually got embedded in my upper lip
because I still have a tiny bump. Anyway, first the tooth was
fixed with a cap, then I needed a root canal and a crown.
Fast
forward 18 years. I want to bleach my teeth because they're
yellow (I drank a LOT of sugary iced tea growing up). Then I
learn that crowns are impervious to bleach, so if I don't want a single
yellow tooth, I'll have to replace the crown. It wasn't too bad
of an idea because the crown really didn't look that good, especially
near the gum line where my gums had receded about 1mm (crowns typically
have to be replaced every 15 years or so anyway).
First I tried crest white strips. You can kind of
see how the snaggletooth is a little darker than the rest, but I was
not satisfied with the results. As far as the product goes, I
give it a 4 (out of 10). This picture is after about 2 boxes of
white strips (about $40 total) and it's a real pain to remember to use
them for 30 minutes at a time, twice a day. Plus they only cover
the front teeth.
Then crest night effects. Sorry, no pictures but also no luck
either. This stuff seemed promising (I bought it off ebay for
about $10) but was really hard to use, felt weird on your teeth and you
had to use it overnight. Seriously- less helpful than the white
strips- I give it a 2.
Then
I go for the big guns! I had my dentist make a set of bleach trays and I
bought the Opalescence bleach kit from the dentist (also available online). I think I had the 20% but they have higher concentrations available:
For both it was
$125. Well worth it to me- and maybe the reason I was more
consistent with these than I was with the crest stuff. I used
them for 2 1/2 weeks- almost twice a day- about 30 applications and
my teeth became the "whitest shade of natural" possible, according to
my dentist. I could have made them whiter, but knowing that
whatever color I chose would be the color of my crown and I would have
to maintain the color of the other teeth with periodic bleaching, I
didn't want to go TOO white. I also didn't want the obviously
bleached teeth. I give this stuff a 9- only because my teeth and
gums got sensitive the first week. Final result:
I guess it's difficult to
compare because of the different lighting. Luckily I was able to
use my crown as the "before" and I could see the difference was
obvious. I had the crown replaced though, so YOU can't
tell- you can hardly tell which tooth was replaced! I  my dentist.
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| | Posted 7/13/2007 12:35 PM - 4 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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