January 2013

Happy New Year.  And what better way to start the year than with a success story.  Tooth whitening is possible, if you have a salicylate intolerance or sensitivity.

Sally's Take-home Teeth Whitening system success story

This worked for Sally, at a time when her salicylate  sensitivity was under control
by eating carefully and using only sal free health and beauty products

 
Recent major surgeries required the taking of various medications over a long period of time.  One of the side-effects was a noticeable increase in teeth staining.  Not pleasing at all, and with a salicylate intolerance/sensitivity, could Sally do anything about it?

Initial research was not at all encouraging.  Products involved in the tooth whitening process use salicylate ingredients, with flavours like mint featuring strongly.

Fortunately, Sally has an excellent dentist www.justsmile.co.nz who uses unflavoured products for her dental visits and to her joy, after considerable investigation, a custom-made take-home kit system that appears to be salicylate free was found.

In preparation for the whitening process, the dentist made an impression of Sally's upper and lower teeth using uncoloured Vynal Polysiloxaine, a very rapid setting non-flavoured impression material.  The impressions were filled with plaster to create a cast, on which the whitening trays were made with liquid plastic.  These took a couple of days.

The product Sally used was, 'regular Opalescence tooth whitening systems PF35%' www.ultradent.com.  The tooth whitening purpose-made zipped kit bag consisted of the two custom-made teeth covering trays, 16 syringes of non-flavoured bleaching gel and an instruction booklet.  Sally kept the syringes in the fridge.

Each morning after cleaning her teeth, using a third of a syringe Sally applied a small drop of gel inside each tooth impression in both trays, placed these over her teeth and left them there for 30 minutes.  During this time, Sally usually had a shower, got dressed and did her make-up.  But this could be done at any time of the day to suit.   After each whitening session, she removed and rinsed the trays carefully with warm water.  Sally also rinsed her mouth, being careful as instructed, not to swallow any of the gel.

Each night after cleaning her teeth with flavourless floss and her own salicylate free toothpaste, Sally dabbed some vanilla flavoured *GC Tooth Mousse on her first finger and rubbed this over her teeth.  Containing calcium and phosphate, "in a special milk-derived protein called RECALDENTtm (CPP-ACP)", this replaces lost minerals from the tooth surface.

She repeated this procedure for 48 days, but you may achieve the level of whitening you desire sooner.  Sally absolutely thrilled to bits with the result.

*GC Tooth Mousse is "derived from milk casein and is edible, so can be swallowed, but would not be good for people with milk protein allergies or sensitivity to benzoate preservatives".  It "comes from the milk of finest Australian and New Zealand cows".