Hello, I had my 8 front upper teeth fully bonded about 14 years ago to close in gaps between them. I have taken extremely good care of them and they have held up well, although they have stained now from food and drink. I have been told my only option for white teeth is to remove the bonding altogether,then bleach and rebond or go the more expensive route, porcelain veneers. My question for you is this… if the tooth is actually what has become stained and it is showing through the bonding, why wouldn’t bleaching work? If the coffee, tea, etc. got through, wouldn’t they bleach also?? Thank you.
– Patti from Minnesota

Dear Patti,
I think you’re being given good information.

I’m not clear whether you want your teeth generally whiter or you want the stains removed. If you just want the stains removed, the bonding could maybe be re-surfaced. The cosmetic dentist would just remove enough of the surface of the bonding to get rid of the stain, and then bond new material over that. But if you want your teeth whiter than they are, too, then you need to remove the bonding, have the teeth bleached, wait a couple of weeks for the new color to stabilize, and then re-bond.

We do a lot of direct dental bonding, and the bonding material can produce beautiful results. But the bonding resin is a little bit porous, and over the years it will absorb stain. This stain doesn’t respond to any of today’s bleaching techniques, even the state-of-the-art Zoom whitening that we offer.

If you were my patient, I would encourage you to upgrade to the porcelain veneers. Porcelain has the added advantage of being extremely stain resistant year after year. You could have the whitest shade of teeth you want, and as long as you have to have the bonding removed anyway, why not go for the porcelain?

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