Teeth Whitening

Your options

In-office whitening uses a high-concentration gel applied under supervision, with the gums carefully protected. It takes about an hour and produces a visible change in a single appointment. This is the right choice when there is an event coming up.

Custom take-home trays are made from impressions of your teeth so the gel stays exactly where it should. You wear them for a set period each day over one to two weeks. The result is comparable to in-office whitening, generally causes less sensitivity because the concentration is lower, and the trays can be reused for touch-ups later.

Many patients do both — an in-office session to establish the result, then trays to maintain it.

What whitening will not fix

Whitening works on natural tooth structure. It has no effect on crowns, veneers, bridges, or fillings, which keep their original shade. If you have a crown on a front tooth, whitening the teeth around it will make it stand out, and it would then need replacing to match. That is worth knowing before you start rather than after.

Grey discolouration from tetracycline exposure responds poorly and often needs veneers. A single dark tooth is usually a sign of a dead nerve and requires a different approach — internal bleaching or a crown.

Where teeth are worn thin at the edges and appear grey because the enamel has eroded, whitening will not help; that is a restorative problem.

We will tell you honestly if whitening is unlikely to achieve what you want. It is an inexpensive treatment and we would rather you spend the money on something that works.

Sensitivity and safety

Temporary sensitivity to cold is the most common side effect. It typically appears during treatment and resolves within a few days of finishing. Desensitising toothpaste used for a couple of weeks beforehand reduces it considerably, and the intensity can be adjusted if it becomes uncomfortable.

Professionally supervised whitening does not damage enamel. The reason it is worth doing under supervision is that we check first for decay, cracks, and gum recession — whitening gel reaching an untreated cavity or an exposed root is genuinely painful, and that is what goes wrong with unsupervised kits.