Having had one’s teeth whitened, it is not uncommon for people to arrive at the realization that they have almost a licence to go and do the same things that stained the teeth in the first place. One thing that stands in the way of this, though, is that newly-whitened teeth are more prone to staining from food and drink. If you have just had the treatment, it is advisable to avoid common staining agents like red wine, black coffee and cigarette smoke.

You can maybe have another course of teeth whitening treatment at some point. However, that point is not within weeks or months of the first treatment. Teeth whitening will cause the teeth to be more sensitive – so think about how that will feel after two or three treatments in the course of a year. It’s really not worth it.

If someone handed you a beautiful vase, you would not cover it in graffiti or throw it at a wall. That would be idiocy. So if you are handed teeth that look a world better than they used to, there is nothing to be gained by letting them fall into ruin again.

This is a bad idea. The fact of the matter is that the products used to whiten teeth are powerful – they need to be in order for them to work – and if they are used on a repeated basis there is a significant risk of causing irreparable damage to the teeth. Instead of relying on the treatment to fix the discoloration of your teeth, it is a much better idea to have the treatment once and then be conscientious in the cleaning and washing of your mouth so that they do not get to the point where such treatment is necessary.

If you have a heart bypass, you do not then go out and eat as much fatty food as you can lay your hands on. If you get a liver transplant, you should not immediately start drinking with a zeal unmatched by how you drank before the surgery. Although teeth whitening is not as major a treatment as the former two, the principle remains – once you’ve got the results you want, don’t throw them away because the same treatment a second time can be damaging.

This process brightens teeth from the inside out. It involves drilling a hole into the tooth’s nerve area – the “pulp chamber” – and then cleaning inside the tooth. The root canal is then sealed and filled with a rubbery substance. A peroxide gel is then placed into the pulp chamber and works from this position to bleach the teeth from the inside out. This bleach can be left inside the teeth for several days and the patient left to go about their business – for this reason it is often referred to as “walking bleach”.

At the moment, no treatment like this exists for living teeth – but science continues to work on ways of making surgery and other treatments more effective. Therefore it cannot be too long before the treatment options for people looking to whiten their teeth develop still further and allow more diversity and better effectiveness in cosmetic dentistry. It will be interesting to see what is next.

People under the age of 16 cannot have teeth whitening surgery. The fact of the matter is that at this age the nerves of the teeth are enlarged, and any treatment of the nature of tooth whitening will irritate those nerves or cause them to become hyper-sensitive in the medium term. Without question, this will result in pain and can be damaging to the future health of the teeth. There is no point in having a bright, gleaming smile if you are in so much pain that you cannot flash it.

Additionally, pregnant women and those who are lactating should not have the treatment. The active ingredient of the tooth-whitening agent can be absorbed and, while harmless to adults, can be harmful to an unborn child if passed through the placenta or to a newborn if taken through feeding. Even in the case of over-the-counter treatment with a less powerful formula, it is advisable to avoid treatment until such time as a baby has been weaned so that the danger is absolutely zero.

It may be so, but when it comes to teeth whitening, there are people who have had the treatment and then been shocked to see just how white their teeth now are. Jokes abound – if they switch the light off they have to close their mouths, and so on. In this case, the surgery definitely can be too effective. Quite apart from anything else, it’s like the hair dye job that aims for blonde and comes out the other side into silver. It’s worked too well, and it looks unnatural. Now everyone knows you spent money to look like that.

Take a real poll of the success and effectiveness that other people have had from their teeth-whitening treatment. Go by word of mouth, check consumer sites online and use message boards to find out which companies other people have used and what they thought of their treatment. You can never be a hundred per cent certain of the success of your treatment in advance – but you can inform yourself to a level of confidence.

The truth of the matter is that although there are some recorded instances of people going abroad for dental treatment and ending up with results they are not happy with, this does not seem to be any more common than people being unhappy with the results of full-price dental treatment in their home country. It does not appear that a “full price” country such as the United States or the Republic of Ireland are any safer for dental treatment than the “cut-price” options such as Mexico or Slovakia.

In this light, the only question you need to ask yourself when considering overseas dental treatment is “Where should I get it done?”. Traveling for dental treatment is something that more and more people are doing, without any negative outcome. For you, the job is to research where people in your country are having the work done and what they think of the results. Because in places like Mexico, India or Hungary, there are better and worse dentists – just like in any country.

However, is the teeth whitening process something to be worried about? Is it reasonable to reject the idea out of hand because you heard that someone had botched surgery and ended up with unsatisfactory results, or needing hospital treatment? The figures suggest not. As time goes on and the methodology is perfected, teeth whitening and other such cosmetic dentistry procedures become safer and safer, to the point where something going wrong is enough to completely kill a clinic’s reputation.

The simple fact is this: If you are concerned by a perceived lack of safety in having your teeth whitened, then you should consider the different options available. There are ways which are entirely safe but not as effective, and in this light the best option seems to be 99% safety with total effectiveness. If you are concerned, have a talk with the dentist before the treatment and get your concerns nailed down.

There are many countries – usually those where incomes are higher – where dental treatment really is more expensive than it needs to be. Knowing that people are often prepared to pay the going rate, they set their prices higher than they could. People in those countries who are prepared to do a little bit of shopping around will find that they could get a better deal abroad.

Of course, there will be a number of people who stick to the maxim “you get what you pay for” and imagine that by going abroad for cheaper dental treatment they will get a poor-quality job done, that by cutting costs they will cut standards too. This is not actually the case, in the huge majority of such situations. The quality of such work does not vary greatly between locations – and in many cases the people who go abroad are happier with the work they have done than those who remain closer to home.

Having your teeth whitened is often an expensive choice. The many options available to us as consumers are one thing, but if you see something at a lower price in one place than everywhere else, it is easy to arrive at the conclusion that the lower-priced service must automatically be worse. It’s not necessarily so. This means that you need to research your options.

Some people have found that for cosmetic dentistry processes their preferred choice is to go abroad. There is the question of paying for travel but, on the other hand, the treatment can be a lot cheaper depending on the country – and lose nothing in terms of quality. You can even combine the trip to get your teeth whitened with a holiday in the city where the treatment is carried out, making it a dual purpose journey. Whatever you do, though, it is important to be sure that you make an informed choice.

Usually, all that is necessary to debunk the more ludicrous claims is a bit of common sense. If a home whitening course is packaged with blurb that claims it to be the “strongest formula ever – unbeatable results”, they are probably lying to you. In fact, it would be best if they were lying to you, because the strongest tooth whitening formula should certainly not be in the possession of anyone who is not a doctor. It would be enormously dangerous.

Other times, the claims are a little less sensational, and may well be true. With the internet being the indispensable research tool that it has become, you may be best served by doing a little detective work before making a decision on any tooth-whitening kit. Spending too much money on something that has limited use is a mistake that too many of us make, and can be avoided if we look on consumer sites and review sites.