How Can Dental Treatments Make You Look Younger?

When people think of “looking old”, they usually describe wrinkles, lines around the eyes or droopy eyelids.  Some also recognize the lengthened, yellowed teeth, droopy lips and sunken face that accompany aging.  These problems can actually make someone look much older than they are.  And these are problems that your dentist can address with various dental treatments.  We will describe a few of those treatments here under the category of what aging problem they “fix”.

Receding Gums

We don’t use the phrase “getting a little long in the tooth” without cause.  Receding gums make teeth appear longer because they begin to expose the roots of the teeth.  Especially on the lower front teeth, this gum recession makes one look “old”.  A skilled surgeon, like Dr. Ann, can cover these roots with a procedure called gum grafting.  By returning the gum line to its natural position around the neck of the teeth, it not only improves the appearance; it also improves the health of these teeth.

Gum recession on the lower front teeth becomes especially noticeable when there is also drooping of the upper and lower lips.  As the entire smile drifts lower on the face, you show more of the lower teeth than the uppers.

Chipped or Worn Front Teeth

Generally, it is in relation to the upper front teeth that chipped or worn teeth contribute to an aging appearance.  There is a certain amount of the upper front teeth that should show during normal speaking and smiling.  As a normal part of the aging process, the upper lip droops lower in the face, making you show less and less of the upper front teeth.  No matter how old you are, if your upper front teeth are unnaturally shorter than their original shape, it gives the same appearance of aging that a drooping lip does.

This is one of those scenarios that can cause a person to show a premature appearance of aging.  The remedy is to restore the teeth back to their original shape and length with dental restorations.  This may involve composite resin bonding (the tooth-colored filling material that adheres to enamel), dental crowns or porcelain veneers.

A skilled cosmetic dentist can recreate the original shape of the teeth, returning someone to his or her natural, youthful appearance.

Yellowed Teeth

Years and years of coffee, tea, red wine and tobacco consumption accumulate into deep yellow stains on the teeth.  This is, by far, the easiest and most conservative aging problem to treat.  By performing professional teeth whitening, you can brighten your smile up to a shade that is even whiter than your “normal”.  With results in as few as five to seven days, this is also the fastest way to look younger, when it comes to your smile.

Sunken Lips and Cheeks

Did you know that the soft tissue of the mouth will fill whatever space it can get?  Your teeth hold your tongue in and your lips and cheeks out.  When a tooth is missing, the lips and cheeks will sink inward to fill that space.  Multiple missing teeth cause visible changes to the face.

Replacing missing teeth is essential to supporting healthy chewing function and digestion throughout life.  However, we often stress the functional benefits of replacement teeth that we forget to mention the cosmetic benefits.  Of course, everyone knows the cosmetic benefit of replacing a missing tooth in the front of the mouth.  What we want to stress in this particular article is the cosmetic benefit of replacing missing teeth in the back of the mouth.  Missing back teeth lead to sunken cheeks and wrinkles in the face.

You can replace missing teeth with dental implants to restore both the natural appearance of the face and the function of the mouth.  By replacing the missing teeth with implants, which are the closest thing we have to natural teeth, we can fill out the sunken cheeks and lips, returning them to a more natural appearance.

Want More Info about Dental Treatments to Make You Look Younger?

Click here to see before and after photos of actual Designer Smiles patients.  Make sure to peruse our website for information on teeth whitening, porcelain veneers, and dental implants.