Solutions For Discolored Teeth

I have a handful of patients that have had some type of trauma that injured their tooth. Later these people will notice that their tooth is beginning to discolor.

This is not an unusual complication, after some kind of tooth trauma, to have your tooth discolor. The tooth begins to die and the tooth begins to turn a brownish color.

For many people this type of discoloration causes embarrassment and the person begins to hide their smile.

Here are three things that you could do to improve the look of your discolored tooth.

1. Bleach the inside of your tooth.

Many people believe that if they just whiten their traumatized tooth, that the color will improve.

This is false.

Whitening products that are purchased at stores or that are provided at dental offices are designed for external stains or the outside of the tooth. Teeth that discolor, due to trauma, are stains that are internal or inside the tooth. Therefore if you bleach with the traditional whitening products, they will not work.

But if you have a dentist open up the tooth and place bleaching products on the inside of the tooth, this will work and lighten up the tooth.

The unfortunate thing is that this is not a permanent fix and will probably need to be repeated in the future. Those teeth do lighten up but tend to darken again in the future.

2. Cover the front of the tooth with a cosmetic material

Another solution is to cover the front part of the tooth with a cosmetic material that will help disguise the discoloration.

Some of the materials that could be used are cosmetic bonding, porcelain veneers, zirconia crowns, or lithium disilicate.

Each of these materials have pros and cons and have different stain blocking capabilities.

The best thing to do is to discuss with your dentist as to which material is best for your situation.

3. Removing Your Severely Stained Tooth is another Way to resolve

In some cases the stain on your tooth is so severe that the only way to improve the cosmetics is to extract the tooth and then place an implant in its place.

With these severely stained teeth no material will properly disguise the discoloration. With these teeth the patient and dentist decide to extract the tooth and place an implant.

This is the most extreme solution and should only be used as a last result.

I hope this article helped and if you have any questions about severely stained teeth please call our office at 773-292-1911.

Floss like a madman!

Emilio “Brown Tooth Eliminator” Couret