About Me

Dental Health and Food: Learning to Eat Better

My intense love for candy, cakes, and everything in between started as a child. I simply couldn't go one day without something sweet to eat. But my love for all things sweet took a toll on my teeth. My dentist diagnosed me with seven cavities, each one a different size and depth. After sitting through four long dental appointments, I decided to make a change. I now monitor my diet and only eat things that benefit my oral health. I'm here to help you take better care of your teeth. My blog offers tips on how to improve your diet, maintain good oral hygiene, and many other topics. Hopefully, you can learn to overcome your bad habits just as I did. Good luck with your future dental health.

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Dental Health and Food: Learning to Eat Better

What You Should Know About Whitening Your Teeth

by Eric Bailey

When your teeth get stained you can choose from a variety of methods in order to get them white again. However, if there are other factors that have caused your teeth to be discolored, then whiteners may not work. The more you learn about your teeth, what can affect their color and whitening them, the better your chances of maintaining a great looking smile. Here are some things you should know:

 Things that can change the color of your teeth:

Foods and drinks – Foods and drinks can be some of the biggest offenders when it comes to staining teeth. Some of the worst of these offenders include red wine, coffee, tea, red pasta sauce, soy sauce and foods colored with food coloring like cake frosting. Whitening can be successful when your teeth are stained due to the things you consume.

Natural aging: Your teeth are covered in a shell called enamel and right under it is what is called the dentin. As you age, the enamel gets thinner and the dentin starts to show through. This causes a discoloration to your teeth. If your teeth are looking different for this reason, then whitening won't be much of a help.

Tooth injury: If something has happened that has injured one or more of your teeth then it can cause more dentin to be created as protection. This can cause the dentin to show through and make your injured teeth look darker. In the case of an injured tooth, whitening won't do anything since the problem is coming from the inside.

Medicines or treatments: There are certain medicines that can change the color of your teeth. Certain blood pressure medicine, mood disorder medicines and even undergoing chemotherapy can have effects on the color of your teeth. Since the actual tooth color has been changed from the inside, whitening products aren't going to work.

Smoking: The tar in certain nicotine products like cigarettes, cigars, pipes and chew will stain your teeth. Tar is stubborn, but since the stain occurs on the outside of your teeth there are whitening treatments that can actually help to remove some, or hopefully even all of these stains.

How whitening treatments work:

There are over-the-counter products you can do yourself that work by exposing your teeth to things like peroxide that can whiten them. Then, there are professional treatments you can have done at the dentist that use professional grade products for better results. Your dentist may even offer laser teeth whitening which can produce great results in fewer treatments.

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