I’ve been dealing with acne as an adult. Can you believe it? Nothing during my teen years, but now that I’m in a career, acne everywhere. My dentist prescribed tetracycline for me. My teeth have started staining. I looked up my medication and apparently it can cause horrible stains. Is there a way to prevent this or should I stop taking the medication?
Judy
Dear Judy,
While tetracycline can cause stains on teeth, they only do that when the teeth are still forming. Anyone 13 and under should avoid it if possible, but as an adult that would not be the cause of your stains. That being said, there is one study that says the a variety of tetracycline, minocycline, can cause stains on teeth after they are formed. You may want to see if you have that type of the medication.
If that is what is causing the staining on your teeth, you have three options. First, you can try bleaching the stains out with teeth whitening. Depending on how bad the stains have gotten, it may take a bit of whitening. The other two options won’t remove the stains, but they will cover them. Those options are either dental bonding or porcelain veneers. While just about any dentist can do teeth whitening, you will want an experienced cosmetic dentist to do the other two options. It takes some post-doctoral training as well as some artistic ability on the part of the dentist.
I recommend checking out their smile gallery to see what type of results they get. if they don’t have a smile gallery, then they do not do enough beautiful work to show examples. You will want to try a different dentist in that case.
To keep surface stains off your teeth, the best toothpaste for that is Supersmile Whitening toothpaste.
This blog is brought to you by Baton Rouge Dentist Dr. Steven Collins.