A constant concern for many patients is stained or yellowish teeth. It has to be noted that most natural teeth vary through various shades of yellow generally. Fortunately, dentistry has evolved significantly to enable us to fix you up with your desired “pearly whites”.

Discoloration or staining of teeth can be of two types:

1. Intrinsic stains
These stains are the one that are present inherently within the tooth structure cannot be removed by good oral hygiene practices. These stains are usually present since birth or can be the result of an injury or side effects of medicaments like tetracycline or fluoride taken during the gestation period. Such stains do not often respond to bleaching treatment.

2. Extrinsic stains
These are primarily due to substances that come in contact with our teeth like food, cigarettes, spices, paan masala and more. These do not penetrate deep into the matrix of the teeth and sometimes can be effectively eliminated with good oral hygiene or a professional scaling procedure.

We conduct a thorough investigation as to the cause of staining before we proceed. This let’s us assess the degree of success that we can achieve in our treatment, setting realistic expectations. Teeth whitening can be done with or without root canal treatment via a number of procedures which can be classified broadly into the type of mechanism involved in breaking down the stains:

1. Light activated
2. Chemically Activated
3. Laser activated
It should be noted that most teeth whitening procedures have to be repeated after a definite interval.