Should You Get Cavities Filled Before Whitening?

Perhaps you are dealing with some pain due to your cavities, but have an important upcoming event, so your main priority is getting a quick whitening treatment on your teeth. Should you ignore the repairs and just slap on a new coat of paint to hold your mouth over?

Sensitive Smile

One of the main reasons you absolutely should not ignore your cavities and get whitening before treatment is that the procedure causes your teeth to become more sensitive. Depending on the level of infection, we may not even be able to help with your whiter smile until after filling all cavities present. A perfect smile requires a healthy mouth to work with.

Another important consideration is that your teeth may have existing damage and require treatment before whitening simply to avoid having all the hard work go to waste.

You wouldn’t want to get your teeth beautifully whitened, and then the next day have one chip or fracture, exposing the yellow dentin underneath. That’d require another procedure to repair them, and then you’d need to wait an appropriate amount of time just to get more whitening to bring your smile back up to standards!

Getting cavities filled may not seem like a vital part of cosmetic procedures, but it is important to have a solid base to work with before getting whitening done. Letting your cavities remain ensures that your teeth will be sensitive during whitening procedures, and may even require more procedures than otherwise necessary just to reach the same level of brightness.

If you have any questions about the steps involved in safely and effectively improving the appearance of your teeth, or would like to schedule your cavity filling appointment, please contact us today. We will gladly assist you in getting back to your beautiful, healthy smile!