Dyutee asked: “Is it preferred to whiten teeth frequently for better results? If yes, how frequently?”

Hi Dyutee,

Thanks for the question!

It depends on what you mean by whitening teeth frequently. I know that some patients want to whiten their teeth every year, using the same protocol. Or you may be talking about “maintenance” whitening.

With KöR Whitening, the “conditioning” during the initial treatment is so effective that you should never have to re-whiten with the full program ever again. The term “conditioning” means “cleaning” deep within the tooth microstructure (eg: interprismatic, intraprismatic and intracrystalline spaces, etc.)

All peroxide whitening systems cleanse some of the intrinsic debris from inside the teeth via the oxygenation phase of whitening. But with KöR Whitening, the conditioning process is many times more effective for the following reasons:

• The KöR-Seal® Whitening trays seal out salivary and sulcular fluid peroxidase, which destroys peroxide on contact. Therefore the whitening gel remains very active for a full 6+ hours, with some activity seen out to 10 hours. This is in comparison to the typical whitening trays and whitening systems that have been shown to be active for only 20-35 minutes. So with KöR, the oxygenation conditioning (cleansing) just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper, hour after hour, night after night.
• Unlike virtually all other brands, KöR stabilizes all whitening gels with only refrigeration, whereas other brands use chemical stabilizers. Therefore, their gels are less UN-stable when placed in the mouth. KöR gels, with zero chemical stabilizers, when put on the warm teeth, become highly unstable and therefore super effective.
• The typical chemical stabilizers are phosphoric acid and an anhydrous base, or at least partially anhydrous base. Anhydrous is the opposite of “water-base” (aqueous). So the majority of other whitening gels have both chemical stabilizers. KöR gels are fully 100% aqueous. You know the old saying that “oil and water don’t mix”. Teeth are fully aqueous. Therefore, the fully aqueous KöR gels move quickly and seamlessly into the aqueous tooth structure.

So the point is that when the patient is completed with treatment, their teeth have been internally cleansed, or you may think of it as “rejuvenated back to the original cleanliness and youthful ability to whiten,” far more than any other system. This means that simple ongoing periodic maintenance of wearing the whitening trays one night periodically is very effective.

Periodic maintenance does two things:

1. It can quickly DIVE deeply into the teeth because the teeth have previously been cleansed so thoroughly, and
2. The one night of maintenance removes any small amount of debris that may have gotten into the tooth since the completion of the initial whitening treatment.

As a consequence KöR is, with ongoing maintenance, entirely permanent.

Part of your question was how frequently patients need to maintain. And of course, the answer is “it depends on the particular case”. For example, the majority of cases would be totally and indefinitely stable by wearing the whitening trays just one time per month. Given the excitement of the patients when they see their final KöR Whitening results, they don’t mind doing the ongoing maintenance at all to achieve permanent whiteness.

On the other hand, cases such as significant tetracycline staining will often require twice monthly maintenance. But again, put yourself in the shoes of your tetracycline stain patients who have suffered the embarrassment of horrible staining for their entire lives. They are absolutely happy to maintain as often as needed to keep a permanently white smile.

If you have any other questions about this or anything else, feel free to contact a KöR rep at (949) 713-0909 or toll-free at (866) 763-7753

Very best regards,

Dr. Rod Kurthy