Do you have lines on your teeth? Do they look like scratches or cracks? Remain calm! These thin cracks or scratches down your teeth are really just ‘craze lines’ and can be solved with non-invasive teeth whitening treatments.
Here at Dr. Curtis Couch’s clinic in Thousand Oaks California we offer an effective teeth whitening treatment to help remove craze lines and improve your smile to make you more confident with your brilliant white grin!What are craze lines?
Vertical lines that look like stained cracks or scratches on the front of your teeth are actually known as craze lines. What happens is that over years of use, our teeth tend to develop tiny cracks in the hard outer layer known as enamel. These cracks normally don’t cause any pain, but will easily stain, which can cause discolored lines on your front teeth.What causes craze lines on teeth?
Craze lines can be caused by stress placed on your teeth or tooth and this can happen over the course of a lifetime or by any other process that causes a lot of stress on our teeth. Some of the most common causes of craze lines are an effect of biting your nails, grinding your teeth (which many people do in their sleep without realizing), using your teeth as tools, trauma to your teeth, or even just routine use of your teeth. While all causes are not known and often disputed in the industry we would like to focus on some of the ways we can help remove some of the effects of these lines.What can we do for your craze lines?
Here at Dr. Curtis R. Couch’s clinic we offer an easy at-home teeth whitening kit that can help decrease discoloration and craze lines. Using the latest in bleaching technology, we can offer a safe method for creating a smile that you can be proud to show off. With so many at-home teeth whitening kits sold on the shelves people often think they can get rid of these vertical lines by themselves. It is always best to see a professional and use professional products, especially when bleaching your teeth. Our bleaching procedure is cost effective and uses safe methods that will ensure you get that brilliant smile without damaging your teeth or your health.How does teeth whitening work?
At Dr. Curtis R. Couch’s clinic we first take an impression to make a specialized mouth guard or ‘stent’ to hold the bleach against your teeth. This substance is used every night for about 3-4 hours for one to two weeks then at the end of this time patients can notice significant whitening. For many patients this is the only treatment required for discoloration and craze lines. However, for more extreme cases we also offer other treatments to create that brilliant smile. We can provide a special bleaching agent that you can put into your clear custom made splints. If you have a couple of hours a day to wear your splints, our special bleaching agent can help remove the stains and craze lines out of your enamel quickly without altering tooth structure. This is a fast, easy and inexpensive way to improve craze lines and general discoloration as a whole.A little bit more about teeth whitening…
Preventative methods to ensure you keep your teeth as pearly white as they possibly will ensure you keep those craze lines away. It is always good to stay away from food and drink that will stain your teeth. Common teeth strainers are:- Coffee
- Red wine
- Tea
- Blueberries
- Beets
What are some alternative treatments for craze lines or more serious discoloration?
For very severely stained teeth, we also offer crowns or porcelain veneers as a more refined alternative to teeth to whitening treatments. Let’s find out a little bit more about these treatments:Are crowns and bridges right for me?
Crown and bridgework can be a solution for major craze lines on particular teeth, so with the use of porcelain or porcelain pasted on gold crowns we can make your smile craze line free. This is an extremely reliable technique for repairing the most severe of dental problems, even permanently replacing missing teeth to offer a complete smile and a functional bite. The benefits of crowns and bridges are:- Replace missing teeth
- Offer support to misshapen teeth or badly broken teeth
- Look completely natural
- Can fixes smile and functional chewing problems