Whitening Tooth Crowns

"Hi! This is Dr. Alida Smisek on behalf of expertvillage.com. I'm here to talk to you about teeth whitening tips and techniques. In this clip, we're going to talk about how to whiten teeth with crowns or veneers. Unfortunately, some teeth that are heavily restored, may have had root canals, or are severely discolored are very difficult to whiten with the products that are available on the market. In cases like this it can be very challenging to get a good cosmetic result and you may have to consider some other procedure such as crowns or veneers. A veneer is basically a little porcelain fingernail, if you can visualize that, that gets applied to the front surface of the tooth. It's a nice procedure because it doesn't require a lot of tooth reduction, and it actually is bonded to the enamel of your tooth. One of the things that you have to be careful with veneers is because the porcelain is so thin it can fracture easily so you have to kind of treat them a bit of TLC. Another procedure that can be used is a crown. A crown is a little more invasive in the fact that we have to remove more tooth structure. Basically, your dentist would do a preparation on your tooth. This is just a model that someone who has had a crown made. Reducing all around the perimeter of the tooth, and then a lab would make a porcelain type of crown that can get cemented right over the top of your tooth. Because this is all the way around the tooth, it provides more coverage and it is actually an ideal solution for a tooth that has been heavily restored or has had a root canal. As you can see, it can be made of all porcelain, which can be very aesthetic and it can be matched to your natural teeth on either side of the crown-covered tooth."