Some time later

After spending all that money having my teeth straightened, I spent a little bit more and got a teeth whitening kit from my dentist.

This comprised a new mould and a set of much softer 'trays' in which I put a fairly strong gel bleach. This only needed doing for a couple of hours - not overnight, so it doesn't interfere with needing to wear the rigid, nighttime retainers - and only every three days or so.

I was warned to avoid anything that might colour the teeth such as coffee, wine, curry, tomato, etc as the bleaching apparently opens up the surface of the teeth. I wasn't too strict about this but I did avoid curry!

The bleach can make your teeth quite tingly and sensitive for about 12 hours after using them so, as I was doing my bleaching in the afternoon (I work from home) I found that by supper time eating any chewy was quite uncomfortable so I either had to cook easy-to-eat food or take an ibuprofen tablet first. Or both.

After a few weeks, I was happy with the result so I've kept half a tube of gel for top-ups, perhaps for a special event.

So here's a final pair of pictures showing the before:

23rd August 2013

 and after:

April 2016, six months after the appliances came off

Not perfect, but job well done, I think.