I want to say first thing that my wife has a gorgeous smile. It’s what first caught my attention about her. When we were dating, I assumed she did some form of teeth whitening. What I didn’t know was quite how much. We’ve been married for a few months now and she seems to do whitening “touch-ups” every month. Could this damage her teeth?
Lawrence F. – Cambridge, OH
Lawrence,
I have a couple of questions.
1. Is she doing touch-ups with over-the-counter gel or with professional gel her dentist gave her?
2. Does she smoke or drink coffee?
Most people choose to do touch-ups about once a year. Once a month makes sense if she has habits that could stain her teeth, such as smoking or drinking coffee.
Though, that being said, she could inadvertently be sabotaging herself. The whitening procedure opens up pores in your teeth in order to really get that gel in there. It takes those pores a few weeks to close up. If she’s whitening her teeth every few weeks, it’s likely she picking up more stains than she would under normal circumstances.
Professional teeth whitening gel is much stronger than over-the-counter whitening. If she doesn’t have a different reason for touching-up so often, it will save her time and money to do it through her dentist once a year.
In most cases, it doesn’t hurt to whiten often. However, some signs she could be over-whitening are her teeth are becoming translucent or if she’s developing sensitivity.
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