Stained teeth (due to attachment of braces)

[melspell]

I only have braces on my lowers, and since I had them put on, my teeth (lowers) have darkened quite a bit. I'm thinking it's because they had to rough out the teeth to attach the brackets, and in so doing they took off a lot of enamel. Has anyone else had this problem? Other than giving up coffee (not THAT???!) what did you do to whiten them back up? Whitening toothpaste doesn't seem to be helping, and of course now I can't put on the white strips. Is there a whitening rinse you like? Mel

[Snowglobe32]

Do you have metal brackets? Metal brackets can make your teeth appear darker.
I do not believe they take any enamel off when applying the brackets.

Try looking in a mirror outside in the sun. See if it makes a difference.

[ashesgap]

They don't remove enamel at all. Just rough'n up the surface a little.
What color does the staining look like? Is it the whole tooth, or just under the archwire?

[Johnny B]

I was going to ask a similar question.

I had metal brackets put on the bottom teeth last week and a couple of days ago I noticed that the area above the brackets appears darker.

Is this a shadow or some sort of optical illusion caused by the brackets? I find it hard to believe that there has been an actual color change so quickly and for no apparent reason. It was bothering me but I've been leaning toward the idea that it is just my imagination.

[ashesgap]

I had actual staining, and then imagined staining. The staining was in between the teeth and below the archwire, cause by Crest Pro-Health. Once those were gone I off and on see what I thought was like a light blue or grey color above the brackets, on my lower teeth. I think this is just something having to do with lighting and shadows, reflections from the metal brackets i'm sure.
I brush my teeth twice a day, really well, I rinse many times a day as well and I floss every night. So stains are not something I should have to worry about, and I'm sure it's the same for everyone else. Apparently braces make us too aware of our teeth.

[peacefrog]

I found that after being braced my teeth started to look dingy. When I went to my regular dentist for a cleaning I had excess cement around the brackets. The cement was staining with every cup of coffee or glass of tea I drank. Anyway my dentist scraped off the excess cement during my cleaning and now my teeth look bright white again.