whiten your teeth with light?

[don_willard]

I saw an infomercial that depicted people sitting in dentist chairs for an hour while a light was evidently shone on their front teeth. Does this actually work? Is it expensive? Does it make you gag like when they make an so-called “impression” and the impression substance backs down your throat? Does that intense light harm your skin?

[casdave]

…and if you are a specialist in this field a little bit of info on the use of ultra sound to clean teeth would be appreciated.

[Askia]

Hello-ooo-ooo? People need ignorance abolished, here.

[casdave]

I’ve got to bump this.

I had seen on tv that dentists have been using laser light to clean the black stuff off teeth you get when they are going bad.If it is small it prevent it getting worse or else they do the filling work staight after.

The laser used I think was a ruby one and only the blackened patches absorb the energy.

It might be that they use U/V light to kill disinfect the mouth.

C’mon we need some help here.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Google. “light whiten teeth dentist”. Enter. 819 hits.

http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/teeth/teeth.html

If price is not an issue and you want to get the whole thing over with in one sitting, the “Power Bleach” is probably the best choice for you. Also known as “Chairside” whitening, this process takes place in your dentist’s office and can last anywhere from 30 - 120 minutes. (The length of the procedure depends on your dentist’s technique and the color change you want to make.)

While in the dentist’s office, you will be fitted for a dental tray—a mouthpiece that covers your teeth (but not your gums). A bleaching gel of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide, with the active ingredient of carbamide peroxide, will fill the tray. Your teeth will sit in this treatment for 30 - 60 minutes.

With the help of heat and light exposure from the dentist’s laser instruments, the gel breaks down. As this occurs, oxygen enters the enamel and the dentin of your teeth and bleaches only the colored substances. The structure of your teeth DOES NOT CHANGE. (It is not like sanding down your teeth, as many fear, nor does it affect the chemical makeup of your teeth.)

If that’s too cut-and-dried for you, or you don’t like the idea of laser beams shining on your teeth, there’s the Apollo Secret Whitening System.

The Apollo Secret Whitening System uses a new, non-laser procedure which whitens your teeth in only 40 minutes. A special light is used in combination with a new, patented formula which can free you from sensitivity and increase results.

[Zor]

Yep, you need to put some gel on your teeth and activate it with laser, heat, or UV light, so the gel chemically breaks down to release its active ingredient. I think it’s the hydroxy radicals that do most of the hardcore bleaching, while oxygen is sort of the side kick helper. That last part it just my guess though…

Ultra sound cleans teeth in a similar way ocean waves pull on seaweed. Water molecules oscillate forward and back as a sound wave passes by. When those waves hit your teeth, the plaque and dirty stuff will tend to oscillate forward and back as well, which loosens their grip on your teeth, and eventually makes them fall off. Ultra sound just has a higher frequency of oscillation than normal sound, which cleans up the plaque faster as you rock it more often.