Just about everyone wishes they had whiter teeth; and why not?  Of course, your teeth’s enamel is naturally white before being put through the rigors of years of daily wear and tear. Over time, the enamel breaks down and the yellow dentin behind your enamel shows through, which can in turn make people extremely self-conscious of them when smiling.  Everyone wants to have a nice smile that leaves an impression on others and looks nice in photos – especially with your friends’ propensity for uploading those photos for the entire internet to see.  If you live in the area, the best answer to whitening your teeth may be finding a San Antonio cosmetic dentist to perform a teeth whitening procedure.
Before making the decision to have your teeth whitened, it’s important that you truly understand the process that leads to the loss of whiteness and how it can be combatted.  That beautiful white enamel exists to protect the teeth from chewing, gnashing and acid attacks.  But as millions of tiny cracks are formed in the enamel, that yellow dentin mentioned earlier can start to show through over time.
When you get right down to it, there are two types of stains (extrinsic and intrinsic) that negatively affect the teeth.  Let’s start with the extrinsic kind.  These are your run-of-the-mill superficial blemishes that commonly form on the surface as a result of consuming dark-colored drinks, food and tobacco.  Simply brushing your teeth or having prophylactic dental cleaning performed by San Antonio dentists will eliminate most extrinsic problems.  When they are particularly stubborn, however, more involving measures like teeth whitening may be required to restore the natural beauty of your teeth.
Now that you understand extrinsic, you can probably guess what intrinsic stains are.  That’s right; these bad boys are the more serious type of stain that occurs on the interior of teeth.  Their appearance is usually linked to aging, trauma, exposure to minerals during tooth formation and/or excessive ingestion of fluoride.  While it was once believed that not even teeth whitening could eliminate these stains, modern dentistry has proven otherwise.  It is now widely recognized within the dental community that professional take-home whitening kits can be utilized under supervision for a period of several months to a year in order to overcome even deep-set intrinsic stains.  Come visit the best dentist in San Antonio to learn about how this procedure can restore the once luminescent appearance of your own teeth.