I saw an advertisement for the Tanda Pearl Ionic Teeth Whitening System. It says it can work in 5-minute intervals. I already have teeth whitening trays from my dentist and they have to be worn a minimum of 20 minutes a day. This has aggravated my TMJ Disorder. The idea of wearing the Tanda Pearl System is appealing. Is it safe? Does it work?
Avery
Dear Avery,
Professional Teeth Whitening Trays
I’m glad you wrote. I think I can save you some real grief here. I took a look at the system you were talking about. It appears to have the same standard ingredients that you’d find in the teeth whitening you’d get from your dentist with some differences.
First, because it is over-the-counter, the whitening gel will have to be less powerful by law. Therefore, you are not getting as much bang for your time. They say the ionic light helps, but they provide no information about this which makes me suspicious. If that light was that efficient, they’d make a fortune marketing the system to dentists. They’re not, which also has my spidey senses up.
Second, their trays. While the trays your dentist provided for you are custom made for your bite with an individual tray for each arch of your teeth, the ones provided by Tanda Pearl are bulky and the tray is used for both arches simultaneously. This means you have to bite down on it and hold it in place like that the whole five minutes.
Your dentist’s trays are invisible and you can go out in public without anyone knowing. You can even sleep in them if you wanted to. Not so with Tanda Pearl on either count. Plus, gripping it like that with your bite will do more than aggravate your TMJ Disorder, it will make it significantly worse.
If the twenty minutes with your tray is too much for your jaw, you can cut that back to the five minutes which appealed to you. Your dentist only told you 20 to give you as much benefit as possible in a short interval. It will just take a little longer to whiten them, but it will still be more efficient than using the Tanda System.
This blog is brought to you by Des Moines Dentist Dr. Phelan Thomas.