Children are always inflicting some sort of trauma on themselves through simple accidents. Accidents to the mouth and teeth can be anything from knocking teeth out to damaging the root. The damage to the root will cause a grey discoloration in the tooth. This grey tooth will stand out amongst all the other pearly whites. The good news is, that if you wait a short while, the unattractive tooth will be out of there anyway. What about the adults? Their discolored tooth will be in place forever, as the first thing people see upon any meeting. Since the tooth is not going anywhere soon, what options do adults have?
Practically everybody wants to have some polish added to their smile. Through our lives of smoking, drinking coffee, and poor dental hygiene, we recognize how teeth whitening can help. This is usually the first option that people choose when they want to fix that damaged grey tooth. ‘Just whiten it, so it looks like the others’. The problem is that merely whitening is probably not going to improve the tooth’s appearance. In fact, it could very well make it appear worse. Whitening makes the enamel translucent, thereby making the grey stand out even more.
The problem with whitening the grey tooth is that damage and discoloration is not on the surface. Whitening is for the polishing of the surface enamel of teeth. There is a slight possibility that a teeth whitening may work, but its effectiveness is highly unpredictable. The most effective option for getting rid of any grey tooth discoloration is to place porcelain veneers over these teeth. This will probably result in teeth that look better than you could have imagined. A root canal is only necessary if there is infection present in the structure of the tooth. However, if you ever do need one, the veneers will not hinder the dentist from performing the procedure.
