I decided to get my teeth whitened. I have been thinking about it for about a year, and then my dentist brought it up, so that seemed like a GO. My teeth aren’t TERRIBLE, but if I try to wear a lipstick instead of a lipgloss, I can super tell my teeth are not the right color… Also since I end up taking a lot of photos for work, I don’t want to offend the innocent public with my weirdnesses.
I asked my dental hygienist, whom I LOVE AND ADORE (her sister also cleans my teeth and they are so nice and funny), to run down some options with me, with as much honesty as possible (as I know they would probably want to push the dentist’s offering which was bleach trays).
Surprisingly, she told me that the home whitening strips’ “chemistry” was getting better and actually not a terrible option. However, they are probably only best for touch ups, and not for an initial whitening, as it’s difficult to obtain good coverage and you might get zebra stripes!
She said the un-fitted trays you buy over the counter are fine, but you’ll get the goo all over your gums, and that’s not really where it’s supposed to go. My gums are already sensitive and testy, so that didn’t sound like an option for me.
My bestie got the laser whitening a few years back, which sounds cool cuz it’s a one-time thing, but my hygienist said she’d seen a case where the lady got laser whitening and some of her tooth sheared off and she also needed like a kabillion root canals. Granted, that was probably a one in a million case, and maybe affected by other things, but…. I don’t need to go there.
So bleach trays it is! Today I got my impressions done. WHICH SUCKS. I have a really sensitive gag reflex. I gag when I brush my teeth or try to pick popcorn out of my molars. If you have to get your impressions done for trays or a mouth guard or braces, here are a few tips I’ve been given.
– Ask if they can mix the goo with warm or hot water. This apparently makes the goo set more quickly so it spends less time up in your mouth parts.
– When they do the upper impression, which is the suckiest one, ask if you can lean forward instead of leaning back. This is so you don’t feel like all this crap is going to creep down your throat, plus any errant saliva can run forward and not back. I always feel like if I swallow, my gag reflex will go cray cray, so I’d rather drool all over myself onto some paper towels than wretch up some bile on the nice technician.
– They always tell you to breathe through your nose. I also like to go into a meditative stare to try to go to my Happy Place.
I have sensitive teeth, so apparently, after I do a sesh of bleachie goo, I will follow up with a short sesh of de-sensitizing goo. We’ll see how it all goes. I go back in next week to get all my shizz.
