Home tooth whitening kit which is FDA approved will it damage my teeth

Q. I have bought a home tooth whitening kit and on the website it says it has been endorsed by the American Dental Association and licensed by the FDA (American Food & Drug Administration, and has a full licence throughout the rest of Europe. It also says that Fifteen years of published research by international dental experts concludes there are no side effects when using 10%, 16% or 22% gel in custom fit trays. Please let me know whether this percentage is too high as I am worried that it will damage my teeth. Thank you

 
A. It is true in saying that all the concentrations you mentioned are available for teeth whitening. However, it does depend on a few things. The safe concentration depends on what the whitening agent is. - either Hydrogen Peroxide or carbamide peroxide.

Also, whilst the concentrations or whitening agent may be safe, they are only safe when used with the whitening system they were originally tested with. In conjunction most approved whitening systems were tested with customised fitting trays. Nowdays trays are available which you mould to your teeth by immersing the trays in hot water. These are not ideal, and again outside the “approved tested method” .

Whilst they may work, there are too many variables for me to clearly say if the particular system you are using is safe. The whitening system i used, is very strict with its technique and criteria, and i find it hard to achieve that level of regulation from internet websites.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Regards

Dr Safeer Butt
Principal - S3 Dental Surrey
www.s3dental.co.uk

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Tags: Q. Teeth Whitening

This post was published on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 8:59 amand is filed under Dr Butt's Answers, Experts Answers, Q. Teeth Whitening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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