Laser Teeth Whitening – Pros and Cons
If you’re looking for the fastest available procedure for turning your teeth white, you might want to try laser teeth whitening. Although this procedure costs more than other more traditional teeth whitening methods, you do get the instant results that you’re looking for. Another advantage is you won’t have to go through the discomfort and inconvenience of putting into your mouth teeth whitening devices such as mouth trays and strips. Laser is also the ideal treatment for people who have sensitive teeth who have painful reactions from teeth whitening trays and products.
This procedure starts out with the application of bleaching gel on your teeth. This gel is commonly made up of hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide. Laser light is then trained on the gel-covered teeth to activate the bleaching agent in the gel. The laser boosts the penetration of the bleaching agent into the teeth enamel, effectively removing stains caused by coffee, nicotine, and food products that have been regularly consumed for years. The whole procedure takes just about an hour and produces shade lightening of up to ten times the initial shade.
The three most commonly used laser-whitening systems are Zoom, BriteSmile and Sapphire. Zoom was developed by Discus Dental Inc. This system uses a mixture of 25 percent hydrogen peroxide gel and an activator. The pH level of the system is between 7.5 and 8.5. The specific laser used to activate this bleaching system is mercury metal halide that ranges from 350 to 400 nanometers.
BriteSmile uses its BriteSmile Procedural Gel for its laser bleaching system. This gel consists of 15% hydrogen peroxide with a pH level of 6.5. An accelerator is added on the second and third treatment to improve the whitening effect of the system. It uses a gas plasma-based laser, or light emitting diode, that is, LED, that have wavelengths ranging from 400 to 500 nanometers.
The Sapphire Whitening System was developed by Den-Mat, the same entity that developed the popular porcelain dental veneers, Lumineers. This whitening system combines the use of their Sapphire Whitening Gel with their signature laser, Sapphire Plasma Arc Light. The gel is specially formulated to allow absorption of light in the blue end of the light spectrum. Once the gel gets activated by the laser, it breaks down into reactive components that target the stain-causing colored compounds on the Both the gel and the colored stain compounds get activated and react with each other.
Dental health practitioners, however, are divided concerning the efficacy of laser-activated teeth bleaching systems. Some recent studies have been conducted that used the split arch method, that is, one side of the teeth were treated with just the bleaching product, while the other side made use of both the whitening product and laser. Results revealed equal whitening on both sides, even after conducting follow-up evaluations a year later. Popular teeth whitening systems that do not use laser, or that consider laser as optional, include Ultradent Opalescence Xtra Boost, Rembrandt Virtuoso Lightening Gel and Niveous.
Laser Teeth Whitening – Pros and Cons by Aline Heller
