December 7th, 2008 by admin

Tooth whitening to make tooth sparkle with no stains or discoloration is the most common dental procedure that is in vogue. Bleaching falls under one broad category of tooth whitening. In the process of bleaching, a material is applied on the tooth that changes the existent color of the tooth and helps remove the deep stain molecules. Most of the bleach materials used by the dentists indeed are peroxide based and the two most popular bleaching agents include hydrogen peroxide and carbamide.

Majority of the teeth whitening products that are available over the counter as gels or pastes and even those used by dentists have some percentage of either hydrogen peroxide or carbamide.

Carbamide peroxide consists of portion of urea and hydrogen peroxide. As oral fluids come in close proximity with carbamide, the constituent parts of carbamide are broken down into urea, water and oxygen. Urea is further broken down into ammonia and carbondioxide. The residual peroxides get removed through the body subsequently.

Hydrogen peroxide is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Over-the-counter hydrogen peroxide solution usually has 3 per cent concentration of hydrogen peroxide and 97 per cent water. The general property of hydrogen peroxide is to break down under light. The nascent oxygen that is released by the breakdown of the hydrogen peroxide has medicinal properties and is so useful in tooth whitening.

Some of the key features in tooth whitening:

• Hydrogen peroxide is a colorless liquid whereas carbamide is in the form of white crystalline powder that is easily soluble in water. Both of these can be used for mouth rinsing as well as bleaching.
• When teeth have more stains, higher concentration of bleaching material is required, and it is hydrogen peroxide that is preferred to carbamide. Additionally, time required for tooth bleaching will be lessened if one uses hydrogen peroxide. This is because carbamide first gets broken down to urea and hydrogen peroxide and then hydrogen peroxide further breaks down to water and oxygen which will take more time.
• However carbamide is more stable than hydrogen peroxide, implying it does not breakdown so easily unlike exposure of hydrogen peroxide to light renders it useless. So it is preferred bleaching agent to hydrogen peroxide by manufacturers of gels and toothpastes.
• There is a common myth that greater is the concentration of hydrogen peroxide, higher is the whitening power. True to an extent but one need to be very cautious on applying this bleaching agent as high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide solution might be equally damaging to the tooth enamel. Having said; however, similar higher concentrations of carbamide will not have same level of debilitating effects on the enamel. And, on the other hand, higher concentration of carbamide peroxide agent in combination with carboxypolymethylene polymer as a thickening agent is quite useful to improve tissue adherence.
• Teeth whitening should not be done when you are suffering from bleeding gums, mouth sores or ulcers.
• Additionally, a bleaching and cleaning can be simultaneously if you also use a mouth rinse with the bleach agents.

As always there are so many non-prescription bleaching agents and check out with your dentists to know how effective they are for your teeth.