Cosmetic Procedures To Whiten Stained Teeth

The quest to find that brighter and gleaming smile hasn't been easy at all over the past years. Ammonia and chlorine were used to whiten people's teeth back in the eighteenth century. It became harsher in the 1950s as the dentists used highly concentration solutions of hydrogen peroxide and baked the teeth under a heat lamp.

Such outdated methods were quite physically torturing, not to mention too expensive, to get much popularity. Today, that has become more subtle and for the Americans, teeth whitening have never been easier than it is now. Last year, the Americans spent over $250 million on bleach, cap, zap and other whitening products. That's still expected to grow steadily.

For both dentists and patients, this seems like a win-win situation. This is very similar to most home treatments, in which the patient is required to wear a specially made mouth guard that has a layer of peroxide gel pressed against the teeth, for two weeks. The most widely used and popular whitener used presently is the simple peroxide bleaching. However, the price for teeth whitening treatment using peroxide still amounts from $200 to $500.

It is less common, but more effective to use lasers to activate the peroxide based gel, and make it react considerably faster. The laser's benefit is speed. A laser treatment offers the same exact results that you can get from wearing a mouth guard with peroxide solution for several weeks, provided that you find yourself a good dentist.

Even though this is still quite expensive, about $100 or more per tooth, it's gaining quite the popularity since it is faster and easier. The stains may eventually return after bleaching, so ceramic veneers are a better alternative to caps. In this process, which costs $500 to $800 per tooth, a thin ceramic cover is essentially glued to the surface of the tooth, providing a more appealing color, and in some cases correcting irregularities in the shape of the underlying tooth.

Besides when your tooth is accidentally chipped or damaged, and you have to use veneers, teeth whitening procedures are not covered under your dental insurance. Though disappointing to patients, dentists sure like it. This is a good motivation for dentists to continue expanding their practice in managed care, such as teeth whitening. To summarize all of that, since managed care has taken hold of dentistry, dentists were able to put even brighter smile on their faces, metaphorically, for all the benefits they acquired.

The quest to find that brighter and gleaming smile hasn't been easy at all over the past years. In the eighteenth century, people used ammonia and chlorine to achieve the same whitening effect on the teeth. Dentists would use hydrogen peroxide before baking teeth under a heat lamp, as recently as the 1950s.

These outdated methods didn't really get that much popularity, as they are expensive and physically discomforting. As of late, the teeth whitening procedures have become more subtle and affordable, making the American's quest an easy route. Americans last year spent more than $250 million to bleach, zap, cap or otherwise whiten their smiles, and the amount is expected to grow steadily in the coming years.