I've had my braces for about 8 months now and I'm noticing my teeth are getting pretty yellow. I'm thinking about using whitening strips to try to brighten them up, but I'm worried it might mess with the brackets or the bonding. Has anyone done this before?
The strips won't damage your brackets or the bonding itself, but here's the catch - they won't whiten the parts of your teeth that are covered by the brackets. So you'd end up with uneven whitening once your braces come off, which defeats the whole purpose. The strips can slip around the brackets awkwardly too, making it hard to get consistent contact with your teeth.
Your best move is to just wait until the braces are off. Most orthodontists will tell you the same thing. Once you get them removed, you'll probably notice your teeth look pretty good anyway - the covered areas have been protected from staining the whole time. Then you can do a proper whitening treatment and get an even result across all your teeth. In the meantime, just keep them clean, skip the dark stuff like coffee and red wine if you can, and you'll be fine for another few months.
Whitening strips will technically work around brackets, but you're setting yourself up for a visible problem. The strips can only reach the exposed parts of your teeth, so when you get your braces off in a few months, you'll have a line of darker tooth where the bracket was sitting. It's basically asking for two-toned teeth right when you're about to show off your straight smile.
The brackets and bonding won't get damaged, that part's true, but the real issue is timing. Most orthodontists recommend waiting until after the braces come off to do any whitening. At that point you've got a clean slate, and you can whiten everything evenly. You're only 8 months in - depending on your treatment plan, you might not have that long left anyway. If you're looking at another year or more, sure, the yellowing is annoying, but I'd just push through and do it properly once the hardware comes off. Your future self will thank you for having a uniform result instead of ghost rectangles on your front teeth.
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