San Antonio Internal Tooth Bleaching

A white smile looks healthy, attractive, and inviting. But after a root canal treatment of a front tooth, the tooth can darken, creating a blemished appearance of your smile. Fortunately, when a tooth has had a root canal, it can be bleached from the inside.

Root canals performed using older sealer cements tend to become stained very easily. However, if the internal chamber of the tooth is kept clean and free of staining sealers and cements, it can go several years without becoming discolored.

How Does Internal Tooth Bleaching Work?

We begin by cleaning out any root canal filling or sealer materials from the chamber inside your tooth and sealing off the root canal filling with a base. 

When the base material has hardened, we will fill the inside of the tooth’s crown with bleaching pellets or paste. Then we’ll temporarily close the tooth, and you’ll go home with the bleach in place. You’ll return a few days later and we’ll remove the temporary filling and the bleaching material. You’ll repeat this cycle a few times until the tooth is sufficiently white. Then, we will permanently close it with a composite that matches the newly whitened tooth.

Alternatives to Bleaching

There are two alternatives to bleaching stained teeth: veneers and crowns. A veneer is a porcelain shell that covers the front of a tooth. A crown is a porcelain replacement for the crown of a tooth. To place either, a dentist must reduce the size of the affected tooth for a good fit. With internal bleaching, there is no loss of healthy tooth. While both crowns and veneers give excellent aesthetic results, they’re more invasive than internal bleaching.

If you want to make an appointment with Dr. Janse, Dr. Rayyan, Dr. Thompson, or Dr. Bates and learn more about internal tooth bleaching, please call our office at 210-342-2444. You can also fill out our appointment request form here, and we will call you.