The Secrets Of 1 Hour Whitening

Tooth whitening in an hour fact or myth? Lots of people ask me if 1 hour tooth whitening works or not. The fact that at present we don’t do 1 hour tooth whitening as a standalone treatment in the practice probably tells you a lot about my views on this. I have spoken to patients who will argue a case for both sides. On thing that you need to be aware of if you are having this done is that your teeth will get whiter just by being dried out for an hour. And believe me when I say that 1 hour bleaching WILL dry out the teeth.

Take a look at these 2 pictures, we did not do any whitening at all for this lady. We used some layered resin bonding to close a space between 2 front teeth that she was unhappy with. This in its self is fairly routine cosmetic dentistry at our practice in Edinburgh. No injections needed and a relatively short treatment time of around an hour. Low stress for our patient who liked the idea of injection free treatment and loved the final result. Happy patient = happy dentist!

Now look at the colour of the rest of the teeth, you will notice in the after photo that the teeth look much whiter (evenallowing for different camera exposure settings.) This is because the teeth had dried out during the treatment. Given an hour or two another photo would show the overall shades of the teeth to be back to normal.

This is the same phenomenon that many people see after 1 hour whitening where the initial results look fantastic but seem to fade back from this level very rapidly. My point here is not to say that 1 hour whitening is bad per se but simply to highlight one risk with assessing before and after colour of teeth on the same day. Colour stability after whitening can take up to 2 weeks to develop depending on the system used.

Natural tooth whitneing systems will boost your smile and get rid of the stains that build up over time but if you want the really white look it is still necessary to use a deep bleaching system which mixes together in practice and at home whitening for the best and most predictable results.

Dental Fear or Dental Phobia - A Gentle Introduction

We are right in the middle of some major practice development right now. This goes on all the time along side the dentistry, but the arrival of our Practice Manager last September has allowed Myself and John to allocate more time to improving our services and developing our team. After many discussions with my team about the barriers that keep nervous patients or peole with dental anxiety away from dental practices, we agreed that something was needed to help people bridge the gap between WANTING to see a dentist and actually going ahead and making contact.

As a result our first ever e-course recently went from concept to reality in just 14 days. The information was all there so it was an easy matter to get it organised into bite sized chunks. It was launched on our web site recently already more than 50 participants have completed the course. it has been great to receive e-mails from many of the participants who have found it to be helpful. It is a totally free resource and offers a daily e-mail for 7 consecutive days where we share some of the many tips, tricks and tools that we have used to help dentally phobic patients over the last 20 years. Even if you live no where near us you are welcome to participate. If you know someone who is too scared to see a dentist why not send them the link to the Dental Fear E-course.

It was also a real boost to get such a positive reponse to this idea from the site administrator at Dental Fear Central who helped to test the course and gave some great feedback too. As a resource for patients it is in my opinion up there among the best.

Ideas from our recent practice meeting it also lead us to a radical overhaul of the options that are available to nervous patients . Tomorrow we will be reviewing what progress we have made as a team in helping our patients enter a less stressful world of dentistry. Some of my most enjoyable days happen when we see the practice moving forwards, hopefully this is one.

Fantastic Lab Work

Received a case back from the Lab team at Edinburgh Dental Specialists today and and was blown away by the quality of the finished product. I can't wait to see my patients smile when they see the end result. From start to end the lab team have been very supportive and nothing has been too much trouble for them. The end result is a real credit to them. Our office and reception team have also been fantastic in bringing together all aspects of the case.