[Matt Nejad]
Hey, this is Dr. Matt Nejad and in this video I'm going to be discussing how to
use and maintain your custom whitening trays.
Custom whitening trays are my favorite style of whitening because they're safe,
they're effective, and if you follow these instructions, you can get the
absolute best results without any long-term complications, including
sensitivity. So my favorite gel for doing the custom
[What Gel to Use] whitening trays is the 10% carbamide peroxide, which is
the safest, most well researched, and it definitely
is the most effective because you make up for
the lower concentration by wearing them longer overnight and you have the least
sensitivity. So I always recommend the 10% carbamide
peroxide and one of the most important things in
custom whitening tray sounds simple, but it's the quality and the fit of your
[Quality and Fit of Tray] tray and unfortunately not all trays do this job adequately and
the design matters a lot. So as you see here, I like to
extend past the gum with the tray material so I
get a real tight fit and a seal that prevents the tray
from being too flimsy and also prevents saliva from
getting in and diluting the gel, which is really
important and the quality of that fit is what makes the custom whitening trays
effective, but if you have a poor quality fit,
it doesn't really matter because overnight you won't have the full
duration of action. In terms of the gel application, it's
[Application of Gel] very important that we use a very small amount. Now when I make my trays, I don't
leave a reservoir so that means these trays have
no space for the gel which means that you
only need a little bit and it'll definitely be
pressed and compacted against the tooth. So I put just
a little drop and I like to put it right at the gum line, if you notice that
because as you put it into your mouth, you'll
spread it and I'm only putting this gel on the outside
surface of the teeth. We're not trying to whiten
um, the back surface, we're trying to go from the front
through, that's how we get good results with the least amount of sensitivity. If
you put it all over, you're gonna have a lot more
gel wasted and a lot more sensitivity. So you see it doesn't take very much,
but if your tray had a big pocket reservoir for this gel, you would have to
use more gel and the studies show that it makes no
difference and you just waste more gel.
[Whiten to First Molar]
[Placing the Tray] Now placing the tray in place is also very important. So you see as we have
this and we press it in, the gel will spread
around and coat the whole facial or front surface of your teeth
and you'll get a little bit that will squish out near the gum line due to this
tight fit and the way that I form the trays.
Now you take a finger and you run it firmly against your gums to kind of get
all that excess to squish out, but you don't want to try to lift up the
tray or rinse with water, you just want to use
your finger to rub any extra gel that is removed. That way you prevent
moisture, water, or saliva from getting between the
[How Long to Wear] tray and diluting your gel. I recommend patients wear their
whitening trays for two nights in a row with one night off
and I usually also recommend five to six hours of continuous wear time, preferably
even seven or eight hours. What happens is the
longer duration makes up for the lower concentration of
the gel I recommend, but if you have sensitivity, you can
adjust by wearing less time or you can also do one night on, one
night off so that you're balancing the exposure
time. If you're not sensitive, you can also do three nights on, one night off
and it's important to realize that wearing the tray for consecutive time
and increasing the amount of exposure makes for faster results in a safe
[Cleaning the Tray] manner. In terms of cleaning your tray, what I
usually recommend is two rounds of cleaning. So right when
you take it off, you don't rinse it, you don't want to add any extra moisture or make
the gel too slimy, but I take a q-tip and I take it
on the facial surface, which is the outside surface
of each tooth and I just try to remove as much of the
remaining gel as possible, very important not to use warm or hot water at this
time because what will happen is your tray
will lose its shape and it'll become flimsy and it might not
fit the same way. So only use room temperature water,
preferably stick with the q-tip to remove most of it as I'm demonstrating
and then when you go back to use this again, you can do
one more round of q-tip and whatever has left behind and dried will be easier to
remove at that time. In between uses, what I like to do is
put the trays into a solution and drop in a cleaning tablet
which will disinfect and it also helps remove additional [Check Video Description for Product Link]
remaining gel and you can keep
it just like this until the next time you're gonna use it.
I recommend doing this at least every other time or so, if not every time you use the trays.
[Matt Nejad]