I could use some advice. I had dental bonding done on a couple teeth, both lateral incisors. When he was done, those teeth were darker than the rest of my teeth. When I brought this up he said that teeth get darker the further back you go. When I pointed out that the canine teeth which come after them are whiter than these he got snippy with me and said if I didn’t like the color I could get my teeth whitened. There’s something telling me that this will not work. But, I wanted to check before I dismissed that solution outright.
Carol
Dear Carol,
Your instincts are correct. Teeth whitening will whiten your natural tooth structure evenly. That means all the teeth will whitem, which will not mitigate the change in color. Notice, though, that I said natural tooth structure. Even if you isolated just the lateral incisors to have only them whitened, they have bonding on the top. You cannot whiten dental bonding. That is why it is important to get the color right first.
I’m a bit frustrated with your dentist because he should (and probably does) know this. It makes me wonder if he is saying it just to get you off his back. Also, let’s look at his claim that your teeth get darker the further back you go. Look at the teeth of the woman in the image posted above. Do you see her teeth getting progressively darker?
What does make teeth further back look darker is not their color, but the fact that they don’t have light hitting them the same way it does our front teeth. I certainly would not consider lateral incisors further back. They’re pretty exposed to light.
You have a couple of options here. First, you can tell him you are unsatisfied with the work and ask him to redo it. I’ll be honest, I don’t know that the results will be any more improved the second time around. On the off chance that your dentist was not unethical in his suggestions, the other option is incompetent. Because of that, I recommend you go with the second option, which is to ask for a refund. The only way to fix it will be to have it replaced.
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