I’ve got three dental implants. My teeth have been slowly yellowing and I’d like to whiten them, but I’m worried they’ll damage my dental implants. My dentist gave me the screw retained kind of implant so I think I can take them off while I’m whitening if necessary. I think he did that because I told him I wanted to whiten my teeth when we were discussing my tooth replacement options. Unfortunately, my dentist has been sick and is taking an extended leave, so I’ve got to figure this out on my own.
Logan L.
Dear Logan,
I’m sorry your dentist has been ill. I’m guessing you feel out of balance trying to make plans without your normal care giver. I wish your dentist would have whitened your teeth before you received your dental implants. That makes matching everything much easier.
You can still whiten your teeth without fear of it damaging your dental implants. Teeth whitening only works on natural tooth structure, so the gel will whiten your teeth and leave the implant crowns as they are. However, that leaves you with a separate problem. It leaves the implants exactly the way they are. So, if they matched your implants to your older teeth (which I hope they did), they will not match your new beautiful, white color.
Fortunately, you do have screw-retained dental implants. That’s good, because it makes it easier to remove and replace the crown. So, get your teeth whitened. Then give it a couple of weeks for the color to settle down. Make sure your new dentist has some skill with cosmetic dentistry.
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