There are three essential ways of addressing discoloration in your tooth structure.

First, you can buy an over the counter tooth whitening toothpaste that you can find in the grocery store.

Be careful though because those tooth-whitening toothpastes really just contain abrasives that simply remove surface stains that might be caused by coffee, red wine, dark therapy sodas, black tea.

In order to change the intrinsic color of the tooth structure, what you really need to do is use a whitening material that contains some formulation of peroxide.

First, you can do an in-office procedure.

You go into your dentist's office, usually one visit is all that it takes, and your dentist applies a whitening gel to your teeth.

And after several cycles of applying and removing this whitening material, the intrinsic color of your tooth structure will often become whiter.

The other method that can be used is a take-home method where trays are made to fit your teeth.

You can also use whitening strips that aren't custom made to fit your teeth and you apply the material to the trays and wear the trays.

What's important is to remember that unless your teeth are in fact healthy, how white they are really doesn't matter.

It's important to see your dentist before you consider tooth whitening.

And if you're considering tooth whitening, because if you have dark teeth, cavities, crowns, large fillings in the front surfaces of your teeth, tooth whitening may not be effective for you.