Can You Bleach Your Teeth With Invisalign?

Time to reveal more of my sordid dental past. When I was a kid, my teeth were horribly stained and yellow. They not only had an overall yellow-ish tint, but had splotches of darker yellow peppered throughout. I'm not sure what caused it. I don't think that I had worse dental health than most children, especially after observing my kid's habits (we found out that when my oldest son was away at camp, he found it best to just wait to brush his teeth until someone would comment on his breath). It got so bad that my parents agreed to let me get bleach trays from the dentist. But like most things, we did it only half-way and just got an upper tray. I'm sure my parents thought that I would be a typical irresponsible middle-schooler and lose the things anyway, so they only paid for one.

What I remember actually making the most difference was the scrubbing the dentist gave me before the treatment. To prepare my teeth, he sort of just got in there and ground on them with some rotary instrument. After that, they looked much better and frankly the treatment could have stopped right there. But I got my tray, and my gel. I was to wear it all day and keep the tray filled, which was tough to do because the gel was flavored and it's hard not to suck it out. But I tried, and my upper teeth did get noticeably whiter than my bottoms. And then I lost it. Of course. I blamed the cat.

Now that I'm wearing similar trays 22 hours a day, I got to thinking that maybe I could try the whitening process again. Nowadays my teeth aren't terribly yellow, but I do find myself jealous of other's white smiles sometimes. I also do still have an interesting stain on one of my front teeth that sometimes seems more pronounced than others. I'm sure no one else notices it, but I do. So I looked up on some info on using whitening gel in Invisalign trays. I didn't find any clear answers as to whether this was a good idea or not. Some said that it's pointless because you'll end up with dark patches where the attachments were. They also point out that the Invisalign aligners fit much tighter than whitening trays, and they insist that the gel will just be forced out when they snap in anyway. Others insist that it's a great time to do it since you're already wearing the trays, and the bleaching actually permeates the enamel and whitens the teeth beneath the attachments. Everyone recommends consulting your orthodontist first. I didn't.

I am NOT recommending this, I'm just sharing my experience. I found some whitening gel on the internet one night and just decided to go for it. I won't tell you where I got it or what brand it is or how much it was, but let's just say that it's readily available and is surprisingly cheap. I keep calling it bleach out of habit, but it's actually carbamide peroxide, whatever that is.

First I remove the trays and dry them. Then I carefully place the gel across the front of the aligners, making sure to coat the entire surface and remove any excess. (the first time I made the mistake of using too much). Then I dry my teeth with a paper towel and insert the trays. I then wipe any excess off my gums with the paper towel. It is supposedly mint flavored, but tastes like medicine. If the gel sits on your gums too long, it burns. While I have them in I try not to suck the gel out, and limit swallowing. Dabbing the paper towel around my mouth every now and then helps. It's an unpleasant process. The instructions say to leave it in for 30-60 minutes and repeat as needed. I did it once a day for roughly a week, and have done it a few times since then to refresh. It has made a noticeable difference.

So can you bleach your teeth while using Invisalign? Even though I am, I'm still not sure.