Dr. Jackson was interviewed recently by Scott Walker at WGNS Radio Station, here in Murfreesboro. Here’s the transcript with some great information on teeth whitening.
Scott Walker: Dr. Elizabeth Jackson is with us this morning from Murfreesboro Family Dentistry on Old Fort Parkway. One of the big things that everybody worries about is how white their teeth are, or if they’re not white enough, if they’re stained from drinking coffee every day, if they’re stained from smoking. What can we do to make our teeth more white?
Dr. Elizabeth Jackson: Well, definitely there are a lot of different options out there. Some staining is based on build up on our teeth, so the first step would be to make sure that you are up to date on getting your teeth cleaned. There are definitely some options that are things that you can buy at the drugstore, or at the grocery store, such as whitening strips. Those are great for people who have just a little bit of whitening that needs to be done. Then there are also in office treatments that can be done to help take care of whitening on bit of a stronger level, or get stronger results from those.
Scott Walker: Should we try the drugstore route first, or should we first go to the dentist, get the regular cleaning and everything, and then find out what the dentist has to offer?
Dr. Elizabeth Jackson: Well, I definitely would recommend making sure that your mouth is healthy enough to proceed with whitening. One of the biggest results from whitening that people don’t really like is sensitivity. So if there’s any sensitivity that can happen, it can definitely be made worse by not knowing what’s going on in there. The difference between a lot of the over the counter treatments and some things that we can offer in the office, is with the over the counter treatments there tends to be a lot more sensitivity that’s associated with them.
Over the counter whitening treatments tends to be hydrogen peroxide based, which causes more sensitivity, whereas what we can offer in office is usually carbonyl peroxide based, which offers a lot less sensitivity and deeper whitening. So whitening you can get over the counter takes care of what we call extrinsic stains, or surface stains, whereas what we can offer in the office takes care of intrinsic stains as well as the extrinsic stains.
Scott Walker: Dr. Elizabeth Jackson with us this morning from Murfreesboro Family Dentistry. How often would I have to come to your office to get my teeth whitened? I mean, is it something that you do every month, every week? How often do you do it before you see some real results?
Dr. Elizabeth Jackson: I’ll tell you, in our office we offer three different types of whitening. We offer some strips that are carbonyl peroxide based, so stronger than what you can buy at the drugstore, and offer deeper whitening. That’s something that you can do as frequently as you want to. You could do it every night, or you could do it once a week based on your personal results.
We also offer take home whitening trays where you have basically custom fit trays for your teeth that have carbonyl peroxide that you can wear. We usually recommend up to six weeks of wearing those for the whitest results. We also offer some in office whitening, where you have a very deep treatment, it’s immediate gratification. You come in, it’s about an hour and a half appointment, and we do a whitening treatment that you see many shades whiter before you leave. With that, we also give you the take home trays to continue whitening at home.
Scott Walker: So once you do that in office treatment, does that last for a long time, the whiter teeth?
Dr. Elizabeth Jackson: It usually does, and it’s a personal preference. We usually recommend that we do a little touch up treatment, where you wear your whitening trays after about six weeks to just brighten up that smile again.
Scott Walker: Dr. Elizabeth Jackson with us this morning, talking about whitening your teeth. Dr. Elizabeth Jackson is at Murfreesboro Family Dentistry on Old Fort Parkway in the same shopping center that The Blue Cactus Restaurant is in, kind of next to Kohl’s department store. But again, that’s here in Murfreesboro, online at www.murfreesborofamilydentistry.com We’ll talk to you again next week.
Dr. Elizabeth J: Thank you.
