As the winter holidays near, making your teeth look bright may seem more crucial than your oral health. It’s a natural thought – you want family and friends to see your smile as pretty, not simply strong. However, the truth is that you really should treat any existing cavities before teeth whitening starts. Failing to do so would cause various dilemmas that interrupt your festive fun. To learn more, let your Allentown dentist explain the relevant details below.

Context: The Teeth Whitening Process

To know why cavity treatment should come first, you must first grasp how teeth whitening works. Anything less would mean you don’t understand why one procedure should go before the other.

At its core, teeth whitening uses a special gel to remove smile stains. This gel’s hydrogen peroxide seeps into and bleaches your enamel, brightening it by up to six or eight shades. That means treatment will leave you with a much whiter smile than you had before!

While some dental practices offer an in-office type, at-home kits are the more popular form of whitening today. They only require a patient to wear gel-infused trays for two hours daily over two weeks. That way, you can exercise flexibility in how you approach your treatment plan and enjoy a more convenient procedure.

Cavities & Teeth Whitening Don’t Mix

Teeth whitening tends to be one of the safer dental treatments, but not when cavities get involved. It often harms smiles suffering from severe tooth decay.

You see, the hydrogen peroxide in most whiteners can be pretty powerful. It’s a chemical that can even irritate healthy teeth, let alone those that lose some (or most) of their enamel. This reality means exposing hydrogen peroxide to cavities causes severe pain in the relevant teeth. Even worse, doing so could permanently damage and ruin your smile, leading to further oral issues.

Most patients would want to avoid such oral damage. With that said, please treat your cavities before you undergo any teeth whitening.

How a Local Dentist Can Help

Despite the points above, rest assured that dentists have various ways to treat cavities effectively. You can trust them to address your tooth decay before whitening starts.

Today, dentists usually have two ways to fix cavities: tooth-colored fillings and dental crowns. The former procedure “fills” the holes in your teeth with composite resin. On the other hand, the latter places a strong “crown” on a tooth with an unfillable cavity. This ceramic cap protects the decayed area and hides it from view.

Your smile benefits more when you treat cavities before teeth whitening. So, get treatment in the proper order with your local dental provider!

About the Author

Dr. Bradford G. Young is an experienced dentist based in Allentown, PA, having earned his DMD from the University of Pennsylvania Dental School. His decades in the dental field have made him an expert in preventive, cosmetic, and restorative dentistry, as well as emergency oral work. You can trust him and his team to help any patient’s smile thrive for years! Today, Dr. Young practices at his self-titled clinic and is reachable on his website and by phone at (610)-439-1363.