Make me smile

One of the hospitals here have a drive at the moment with a reduced price on their professional whitening teeth procedure. Nathan and I decided to give it a go and went for a consultation last week to make sure we would be able to do it.
It turned out my teeth were actually already quite white according to their scale system, so the Dentist couldn't really give any guaranties the treatment would make a big difference. A difference of a few shades yes, but maybe not a big one. They can't tell in advance how the Britesmile procedure affects each individual person. Nathan on the other hand was a prime candidate with yellower teeth, and he got told it would make a huge difference for him. We both still decided to go for it.

We couldn't do it at the same time since they only have one machine, so I went first, last Friday. I was a little bit apprehensive since spending about 3 hours in a Dentists chair is not really one of my favourite past-times but it was actually a very pleasant experience.

It took about 20-25 minutes to get prepped and ready, and this was actually the more uncomfortable part of the whole thing. They had to get all these things into my mouth to keep it open, and to keep the tongue protected; some kind of barrier cream got applied over the gums so they wouldn't be affected by the light and there was all sorts of protection for the lips, cheeks and nose.



Then they applied the Britesmile gel on the teeth and the treatment started. It was done in 4 lots of 20 minutes with the UV light shining at my teeth. Luckily for me, it wasn't painful at all. I kept waiting for the discomfort I had been warned could occur, but instead I actually fell asleep a few times! :)



In between the four treatment periods, new gel got applied to the teeth and I was allowed to move around a little bit in the chair. It sure felt good though when it was all done, and they removed everything out of my mouth, aaahhh.

Nathan went today to do his treatment and he had experienced a bit more discomfort than I did, both with the treatment itself and shooting pain in the teeth, but also with the equipment in the mouth that he found very uncomfortable.

So, the result?
Well... no one has yet commented my new and improved teeth, not even the kids noticed the difference, so I don't think anyone else will either. It's not a huge difference, you kind of need to see the before and after photos to notice it.
If anything my teeth "just" looks really perfectly clean and white. There is no discolouration at all, but neither are they "glowing in the dark-white"!



For Nathan it made a bit of a bigger change, he now has a very nice white smile! :)



I guess we are both happy, but we wouldn't bother doing it again. It feels nice though having perfectly white teeth and I hope they'll stay like this for a while!