Teeth Whitening for a Brilliant Smile

Teeth Whitening with Braces

Prior to starting your braces application, you will have your teeth professionally cleaned. It might also be the perfect time to consider having your teeth whitened as well before the placement of the devices. If that is not possible, or in hindsight overlooked, you can successfully whiten your teeth during the time braces are on your teeth. With the most common types of braces, the traditional method, be apprised that if you have brackets on your teeth and you bleach around those brackets, when those brackets are removed, there will be yellow blocks on
your enamel where those brackets where cemented to your teeth. The option of using trays at home and bleaching gels becomes extremely difficult since the trays become very hard to make with the metal appliances on your teeth. Even though they can be made, they lose their effectiveness.

If you had lingual braces, you could have more successful results bleaching just the outside of your teeth. Lingual braces are when the brackets and the arch wire are on the inside, the tongue side of your teeth. So no hardware on the outside. Another option is growing rapidly in popularity, and that is Invisalign. This process uses clear trays to apply the force and pressure to move your teeth. Designed with a CAD-CAM system, computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacture, these trays are designed to be worn for about 20-22 hours a day, but can be removed for the regular brushing and flossing of your teeth. Since the trays can be removed, it also offers them the opportunity to have their teeth whitened at any time during the process.

Suffice it to say, your teeth whitening can be done at any time through the orthodontic braces process. The average duration of any type of braces is about thirteen months, with the process running from six months to 18 months depending on the severity of the correction you are seeking.