Tooth Whitening Products?

DentistsScareMe! asks: "I'll admit it: I've got yellow-stained teeth, and it bugs the hell out of me. I've seen ads (infomercials) over the past few years, but knew them to be mostly hoax products and have steered clear. But now I've noticed the more major (and reputable) pharmaceutical companies jumping into the act, offering their own products. They're moderately expensive ($30-$50), but I'd be willing to foot the large sum _if_ I knew how well they worked. Their ads claim clinical proof, but what exactly does that mean? Did a researcher test the drug on a sample of people to measure effectiveness? Does use of the phrase 'clinically proven' require anything like FDA approval? Has anyone out there used any such product, or know someone who has? Care to comment on how well it has worked?"

Comments

Crest Whitening Baking Soda and Peroxide

[nelsonal]

This stuff is great, it makes my mouth feel great (fresh, clean, and tingley) everytime I brush. It seems to lighten slightly more than other toothpastes, but the tingle and feel of your mouth are much better than any other toothpaste I've ever tried. None of the other soda and peroxide pastes leave the same tingle, and its no more expensive than any other branded tube.

being a bit more constructive...

[kootch]

go here http://www.epinions.com/content_61126119044

Re:"it makes my mouth feel great"

[nelsonal]

Sorry to dissapoint, that wasn't an ad, I'm a happy user of the stuff. I didn't mean to sound so much like an ad.

Here we go

[Cinematique]

Alright, I can speak on this with a good degree of authority, even though I am not a dentist.

First off - the toothpastes are no good. As someone already mentioned, they don't keep the peroxide close to your teeth long enough. Equally crappy are those paint-on peroxides.

White Strips are great, but they don't whiten all of your teeth, so you're left with a white section on otherwise dingy teeth. Plus it's relatively expensive for the results you get.

If you really want to whiten your teeth... you really should go see a dentist. You need to go regularly to make sure you don't have teeth that are rotting from the inside out. ...but I'm going to assume that you don't want to go to the dentist because they can be very expensive. Assuming that your teeth are in relatively good shape, but you drink a lot of coffee or what have you, your best bet is to search Google for a company offering both carbamide peroxide gel in syringes and CUSTOM-fit trays.

Here's the drill - You get a kit with a few syringes filled the carbamide peroxide gel, two trays, a lump of putty, and a pre-paid envelope. You take the putty, mash it into a tray and make an impression of your teeth. Take the tray, drop it into the envelope and send it to the company. Several weeks later, they send you custom-fit trays. Put some gel in the NEW tray and put the tray in your mouth for 15-30 minutes a day for a week or two. Several days later, bam... white teeth!

The absolute best product

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the Crest's night time whiting stuff. You paint your teeth with it before you go to bed, and then brush it off in the morning. I recently used it before a wedding, and lots of people noticed my teeth were much whiter. I've also read some reviews that rated it above the others. It's a two week treatment, and you have to get used to sleeping with it on, but it works really really well.

some info

[lingqi]

as much as /. is not a good place for medical advice: howstuffworks is pretty good.

How to have white teeth...

[Apreche]

Don't drink coffee.

Don't smoke anything.

Don't drink lots of soda or eat lots of candy.

Do brush your teeth everymorning and every night.

Voila! Perfectly clean teeth. I'm 21 and I've had 1 cavity ever take my advice. I attribute it mostly to my never drinking coffee or soda, ever.

Bleaching teeth

[Silh]

As a dentist, first of all, I cannot recommend anything for a specific situation without actually seeing the situation myself. There are different reasons why teeth are yellow, and different ways of whitening as well. As mentioned by many others, get a dentist to have a look at the situation first.

For some more general information about bleaching products: They are all peroxide-based, usually carbamide peroxide, which breaks down into hydrogen peroxide upon use. There are various ways of delivery. The over-the-counter methods such as the strips or paint-on system are lower in concentration than what you would find in a dentist-provided system, but basically the same thing. If you see a dentist, you can either have a home bleaching system made up for you, or have in-office bleaching done. The take-home system entails wearing a custom-made tray carrying the bleaching gel overnight. In-office bleaching uses quite a high concentration of peroxide, applied over a short period of time. Which one you pick depends on how much hassle you want, and costs will vary.

How well does it work? Generally, there will be some whitening, but how much depends on the patient. Smoking, coffee, and foods that stain are absolute no-no's, especially right when you're doing the bleaching, since the teeth at that point can very easily pick stains back up. 'Clinically proven' is a phrase I absolutely hate. To me, it's just a marketing phrase, and says nothing about the amount or quality of research that has been done on a particular product.

Last of all, there can be side effects from bleaching. Many people have reported sensitivity (hot and cold) after they've done it; It goes away for some. Also, I don't know of any long-term studies on whether the teeth are damaged in any way, or more susceptible to decay/etc., so that question is still up in the air.

Personally, I do bleaching for patients on occasion, but I don't really push it, due to concern about side effects. Plus, I find the resulting look can be unnatural compared to how natural teeth are supposed to look.

Another option

[simetra]

I don't know if these still exist, but when I was a youth, they had these tooth guard things to put in your mouth when doing sports. First you boil some water, then drop this thing into it. When it's hold and melty, you put it in your mouth and bite down. It forms to your teeth and stays that way when it cools. This would save you the postage and time of mailing such a thing out.

tooth whitening at home

[budgenator]

While I'm not a dentist, I am a Dental Technicican who works for a dentist, and read the trades arround the office; so any opinions should be considered as questions for your licensed dental health providers.

1. Clinical Proof = A sample of patients, selected by the manufacter to be highly motivated to comply with treatment protocols, and to have stains that the product are most effective against, have achieved a statisticaly significant whitening. The tester are dentists of course, and publish in peer reviewed journals, so they of course use a professional level of ethics; but because the work is funded by a vendor, results that are complimentary to the vendor tend to get submitted to the publisher, results that arn't tend to get forgotten,
2. The amount of whitening is usualy poorly defined as a "shade" rather than well defined as in "Patient presented with shade A3.5 on the Vita Lumin(Tm) vacuum shade guide(an industry standard shade guide) and achieve shade A2 apon completetion of treatment".
3. FDA approval for Dental products are not as riggerous as for Medical Products. In fact materials that are FDA regulated are not regulated by OSHA,alowing dental personnel to be exposed to chemicals that would not be allowed in any other work places.
4. Teeth have two types of stain,
5. 1. external or extrinsic this is a staining of the bio-film, Plaque and tartar.
   2. internal or intrinstic staining of the actual tooth enamal such as coffee/tea/tobaco or even deeper levels as in tetracycline stains.
   
   
6. All tooth whitening products work by oxygen bleaching, which is released from peroxide ions, either hydrogen peroxide (weaker) or from carboxamides (stronger). Additionaly the oxygen tends to kill or inhibit anaerobic organisms which are more likely to be pathogenic and odor causing.

so I would recommend

1. a professional teeth cleaning at your dentist's office or a local
   dental hygiene school.
2. Using dent-mat's "Dazzling White" tooth paste kit,(low abrasion) or at least a bicarbonate of soda/hydrogen peroxide tooth paste and J&J's whitening dental floss for any remaining between teeth stains (abrasive).
3. an Over The Counter toothe whitening product.

don't get too carried away with the whitening, adults don't look natural with milk-white teeth, and teeth that are too white can make matching shades for restorative work immpossible. As for effectiveness I'd say that if the crest products were not effective, then the dental
community would not be so royaly pissed off at them for marketing direct to the public, instead of through the dentists. In offfice or dentist supplied take home kits do tend to work faster.