My dentist wants to use microabrasion on my daughter’s teeth because she has white spots on her teeth. What is this, and does it work?
—Sandra
Sandra:
Yes, microabrasion does work. It involves having the dentist rub a slurry of pumice and acid on the teeth, and it seems to work miracles for certain types of white spots. But it doesn’t remove all white spots.
To the left are before-and-after photographs of what the results of microabrasion treatments look like. The photos were taken from a website talking about GC’s product, Tooth Mousse, and said that this product was used along with the microabrasion. The results, however, look to me to be very similar to what you would see with just microabrasion. Notice that the spots are gone, but that the teeth have a generally darker color to them.
Tooth bonding would be a way to treat these lighter-colored areas without making the teeth darker. Or porcelain veneers could be used to cover the fronts of the teeth to create a really beautiful smile. Or, you could do the microabrasion and then bleach the teeth, which would be the most conservative treatment.
—Dr. David Hall
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