The first thing I did, once I’d made the decision to whiten my teeth was investigate what professional teeth whitening options were available via my dentist. I quickly became disillusioned with this as an option. I guess what put me off the most was the fact that professional teeth whitening is considered to be a cosmetic procedure and therefore not coverable via my health insurance. The short story is that teeth whitening done professionally, without the safety net of health insurance, was just too expensive for me to consider going any further with.

But nonetheless, I did do quite a lot of research on the subject and it would be worth sharing with you what it was that I found out. By and large the professional teeth whitening services on offer came down to: laser teeth whitening, teeth bleaching and tooth veneers.

I was interested to find out the science behind laser teeth whitening , where a laser and a special gel are used in combination to actually alter the molecular structure of your teeth – changing larger light absorbing molecules deep within your teeth into smaller light reflecting ones – the result being whiter teeth. But I was also advised by my dentist that it was probably going to require a few sessions to get to my teeth to a whiteness that I’d be satisfied with and that the costs could get into the thousands. I didn’t want to pay that sort of money.

I also enquired about teeth bleaching and tooth veneers.

Teeth bleaching uses the same sort of gel (generally a mixture with carbamide peroxide or hydrogen peroxide as the bleaching agent) as is used in the laser teeth whitening treatment – but because the dentist doesn’t use the laser as an enhancer the whole procedure takes a lot longer. I was also advised that whilst there was sometimes an instant whitening effect, this was often due to the teeth becoming dehydrated and therefore lighter during the process but once they came into contact again with saliva again they become re-hydrated and the lightening effect could wear off – meaning that I might’ve been required to follow up in the in-office procedure with a home based whitener. Though not as expensive as the laser whitening treatment, the bleaching procedure, depending on the number of sessions it took (possibly up to 6!) could also go from the high hundreds into the thousands.

Tooth veneers – which are basically litte caps that are glued to the front of your teeth to hide the fact that they are yellow – actually need to be custom made and the cost can be a thousand dollars or more per tooth. Yikes! No thanks.

So, at the end of all that, I decided that using a professional teeth whitening service was not for me. But I was going to continue searching …

Stacey