Maintaining a healthy, attractive smile becomes increasingly challenging, especially after age 35.  For many people with age-related dental issues, their tooth problems can feel glaringly obvious.  You don’t even have to have bad teeth or a poor dental attendance for your smile to be feeling a little less than its best.  Sometimes there's been an accident or health problem, but often it just comes down to the natural wear and tear of everyday life over the years, even when you’ve been really careful.  It's not just during photographs that some of us can feel a bit smile-conscious.  Those carefree moments when you find yourself laughing, eating out with friends or just chatting over coffee should feel fun and relaxing.

But those times can be really intimidating if you’ve begun to notice your smile is a little less perfect than it once was.  If that’s you, don’t worry, you’re not alone.  And the great news is, it doesn’t have to be like this any longer.

No one wants to live life covering their mouths to laugh, or hiding their teeth.  That’s not how life should be.  But when you have lost a tooth or two, or experienced some chipping or erosion, that's what can happen.  Even minor problems can start to feel really obvious when you're socializing and you want to look your very best.   Maybe you’ve lived with that gap or been without a few of your teeth for some time now, and you’ve never quite found a denture you feel totally relaxed and comfortable with.

Sitting in the dentist’s chair is not a spot people normally associate with anti-ageing treatments.  Yet it is the piece of the beautification puzzle that is too often overlooked.  People are willing to invest time and money to look and feel better.  They will be Botoxed, filled and lasered, have their skin peeled and abraded.  But when they open their mouths, literally, all that good work can go to waste if their smile, well, is lacklustre.  It’s scientifically documented that a beautiful smile can make a person look significantly younger, more attractive (indeed can transform someone hitherto average-looking into a stunning beauty) and be perceived as healthier, more popular and successful than they necessarily are.

To that end cosmetic dentistry has become a boom industry over the past 20 years, initially driven by people wanting to emulate “Hollywood smiles”.  Your smile is one of the first things that people notice about you, and it’s said time and again you only have one chance to make a good first impression.  Many people will have a knee-jerk reaction to your appearance, causing them to either like or disapprove of you almost instantly.

“Not fair”, you say?  Yes, but unfortunately that is human nature.  We may not like the game, but it is part of the “rules of life”.

A beautiful smile makes a great first impression. It is one of the key reasons people are perceived as attractive, successful or youthful.  Misaligned, badly shaped, gapped, crooked or discoloured teeth, on the other hand, may not only look unattractive and unhealthy but literally drag the face down. This in turn affects a person’s overall appearance.  Most people are “okay” or happy with their teeth and smile, but there are many who aren’t.  They feel self-conscious when they laugh or meet people for the first time and refuse to smile for photos, let alone take selfies.

A flawed smile can also be one of the most ageing features of the face and contribute to health problems such as snoring, jaw pain and chronic headaches.  Teeth primarily hold the facial bones in place.  As we get older or lose teeth, the jawbone is less supportive and the face sinks, contributing to an older appearance.  It may result in uneven lips and reduced lip support, which in turn contributes to deep grooves between the nose and mouth corners, aka nasolabial folds.

People nowadays will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on dermal filler injections to counteract these hallmarks of ageing.  Yet, in many cases, they are not addressing the real problem – the structure of the smile.  Many of us look older, plainer and more tired as we get older because we lose lower facial “height”.  In other words, the depth of our face from nose to chin is reduced as we age. Think of the collapsed, “gurning” [muscle tension in the face] appearance of an elderly person with no teeth.  A modified version of this look comes to most of us just through the ageing process and modern maladies such as “phone face” and “tech neck”.

We grind our teeth, or simply wear them down through age, eating and stress.  This reduces the height of the bottom third of our face, from nose to chin.  However, aesthetic and functional solutions are available into a person’s 80s and beyond.  This is the reason more and more that medi-cosmetic and aesthetics professionals are collaborating with dental professionals across the board to provide the nest possible holistic outcomes for their patients/clients, for appearance as well as health.

As we age, our faces lose volume, especially from under our eyes and our cheeks. This is widely attributed to loss of fat, but we can lose up to 40 per cent of the muscle tone of the face from the age of 20 to 60, exacerbated by what’s happening with the teeth/jaw.  It is this loss of volume, not gravity, that makes skin become loose.  Instead of a tight “triangle of youth” – with the point being our narrow chin and the widest point our cheekbones – we develop a reversed ageing triangle, with thin cheeks and wide, saggy jowls.

This change has been well documented, and there as a result is considerable focus on how the fat we lose from our cheeks can be replaced with fillers.

Many dental professionals believe we can enhance or – sorry(!) – replace these results with attention to the teeth.

WHITENING

The truth is that the whiteness of teeth is no indication of your dental health. Some people with very white teeth have multiple dental caries or even gum disease, while other individuals with severely stained teeth may have no other oral health problems.

So why is tooth whitening important? Your appearance can be dramatically altered just by the colour of your teeth.

Individuals with stained, yellow teeth are perceived as being both older than they are and unhealthy. A white, straight smile is often perceived as an indication of youthful health.

A solution is of course to recommend to patients advanced dental solutions, but there are whitening solutions that can take years off, relatively inexpensively.  Ask us about whitening procedures.

 VENEERS

Using teeth veneers, for example, can give better lip and cheek support, fill out the top lip and enhance facial expression.  There are also several options available to improve the colour and shape of the teeth, remodel the shape of the smile, close gaps and to improve the gum line.  Veneers are usually made of a composite resin or porcelain.  The evolution of composite materials today, with enhanced bonding to tooth structure, has increased the dentist’s ability to control aesthetics in his/her own practice with predictable success and with no laboratory cost.  Porcelain veneers, on the other hand, are constructed at a dental laboratory at a higher cost...but the results are lifelike!

The selection of composite materials offers a variety of shades and opacities of enamel and are used to achieve natural colour and aesthetics in a relatively short, simple and predictable manner.  The technique can be applied to patients of all ages and the results can be astounding.

ORTHODONTICS

All too often, when people hear the word “braces” they think of an adolescent, with a mouth full of metal. As an adult, braces may not seem reasonable, but it’s true.  Adult braces are becoming more and more commonplace in today’s society, as the alignment of teeth change with age and affect health and facial appearance.  Incredible advances in hardware and technique make braces obtainable and aesthetically pleasing for anyone, including adults who are self-conscious about their smile.

In fact, many options for adult braces are hardly noticeable at all. Clear brackets, lingual braces and options such as Invisalign [virtually invisible aligners made of plastic that you wear over your teeth to gradually move them to the ideal position] are all great options for adults who don’t want braces to alter their appearance.  Even in traditional metal braces, the brackets that adhere to teeth, are much smaller than the brackets of years past, and are much less invasive.

Another reason why adult braces have become so much more important to personal health is that straight teeth have health benefits far beyond that award-winning smile.  Straight teeth reduce the amount of plaque that gathers in crevices, and less plaque can lower your chances for gum disease, which has been linked to heart disease and diabetes.

Straighter teeth also allow for better brushing, keeping your teeth healthier and in place for longer.

IMPLANTS

Recent advances in implant dentistry mean that whatever your oral health issues, most people can 'start over' with a fully functioning dentition.

There are many advantages as to why you should consider dental implants for replacement of missing teeth, both from a cosmetic and from health perspective.

Makes You Feel Better About Your Smile

One of the greatest benefits of implants is the ability to quickly improve your smile and boost your self-confidence.  A dental implant specialist places the artificial tooth/teeth that replaces your own missing teeth, and in just one procedure you may be on your way to having a restored smile.  It not only gives you an improved appearance, but it also restores function to an area that was not being utilized for chewing.  Some patients may be eligible for immediate placement of implants and temporary prostheses (teeth in a day) depending on the amount of available bone.  An oral surgeon or periodontist are recommended to place implants, while a general dentist restores the implant into function and ensures ideal aesthetics.

Improves Your Oral Health

A dental implant dentist may recommend implants because they can greatly improve your overall oral health. In areas where you are missing teeth, the bone in your jaw may start to deteriorate. Dental implants help to keep the bone healthy, strong, and firm by stimulating it and providing it with a restored function. With routine maintenance of your dental implants, with regular dental check-ups, you can have a healthy smile for lifetime.

Helps You Eat Easier

When you are missing teeth or have damaged teeth, eating can become a battle, with a decrease in quality of life.  Certain foods may become harder to chew and you may begin to function on one side over the other, causing more damage to your remaining teeth.  With dental implants, you improve the way you eat.  Chewing and biting down on food is no longer the issue they once were.  Additionally, the replacement teeth are extremely strong and similar to your natural teeth, but don’t be alarmed if they do not feel exactly the same.  After all, they are implants and not your natural teeth.

Promotes Good Oral Hygiene Habits

When you are missing teeth, you know how important it is to keep your remaining natural teeth healthy.  Once you have received replacement teeth, you most likely will strive even more to protect your implants and maintain the smile that you have always wanted.  Even with dental implants, you have to be diligent in brushing two times a day and flossing regularly to maintain the bone and protect against failure.  It is up to you to keep your natural and your replacement teeth in top condition.

There are many benefits to receiving dental implants.  If you are missing teeth or have severely damaged teeth, finding a top dental implant surgeon who can help you receive the smile you’ve always wanted becomes very important.  These specialists can help you throughout the entire process, ensuring you receive all of the benefits of this procedure, with decreased risks.