The quest for perfectly white teeth and that killer smile often keeps cosmetic dental health practitioners busy with one patient after another, all of whom want to have their teeth whitened. Individuals looking to have their teeth whitened for the first time often have a number of questions with regards to the whitening process. This article provides answers to three of these common questions.
Why Won't The Dental Insurance Provider Pay For Tooth Whitening?
In a large number of cases, patients who would like to have their teeth whitened are forced to pay the full amount for the procedure from their pockets. This is because many dental health insurance plans do not provide cover for cosmetic procedures.
Tooth whitening (like many other cosmetic dental procedures) is not considered a medical procedure. Thus, it is seen to have little or no impact on the health status of the patient's teeth. It would seem therefore, that dental insurance service providers have little regard for the colour and physical appearance of their client's teeth.
This simply means that those looking to have their teeth whitened for the first time should ensure that they're able to pay the full amount of their bill after getting whiter teeth.
How Does The Whitening Process Affect The Appearance Of Veneers?
Many times, patients looking to have their teeth whitened will have other prosthetic dental devices already installed in their oral cavity. Examples of these prosthetic devices include veneers, fillings, and dental crowns.
Unfortunately, the teeth whitening process often has little or no impact on the appearance of veneers and other prosthetic dental devices after the procedure. Thus, a patient who goes for tooth whitening with stained veneers should not expect to leave the cosmetic dentist's office with sparkling white veneers.
Because veneers will be surrounded by whiter teeth after the whitening procedure, patient should expect stained veneers to be more pronounced after the procedure. This explains why cosmetic dentists will often advise their patients to have veneers installed after the whitening exercise.
What Are The Possible Side Effects Of Tooth Whitening?
The good news is that the tooth whitening process seldom has serious side effects on a patient. Also, these side effects often wear off a few days after the whitening procedure.
Increased tooth sensitivity is perhaps the most common possible side effect of tooth whitening. Patients may also experience slight discomfort on their gum lines after the procedure.
In the event that the mentioned side effects persist beyond the few days following the procedure, patients should not hesitate to book a follow-up with their cosmetic dental health practitioner.
Share27 May 2016
When I had my first child, I was a nervous wreck. Every book I read gave different advice, and I just wanted to be right! By the time I had my third child, some of the stress had abated. I now realised, there were tons of different perspectives on everything related to raising children including dentistry. To help parents, I have created this blog dedicated to unraveling dental myths about children. I am including posts that weigh both sides of issues such as thumb sucking, dental caries, breastfeeding, flossing and any other topic I can think of. I hope you find the information you need to unravel dental myths, but most importantly, I hope you find some peace of mind. With kids and dentistry, there can be more than one right answer, and I want you to be able to relax and go with the answer that's right for you.
