I have a confession; I have a thing about teeth. Unhealthy, crooked, yellow teeth to be more specific. I could barely watch the movie, Austin Powers, because of the cosmetically altered, snaggle teeth of the star, Mike Meyers. Otherwise, I thought the movie was hysterical.
There are any number of reasons why people have poor dental hygiene: economics, genetics, poor self image. The problem with letting your teeth go well into middle age is that the overall health of your body can start to suffer. For this reason, I welcomed Dr. Peter J. Pagano as today’s Guest Poster, who had this to say:
A healthy smile can lead to a healthy body. At midlife, cosmetic dental procedures should also restore healthy gums and natural chewing function. If done correctly, they can resolve health issues not normally associated with a dental condition.
After treating midlife patients for thirty years, I wrote the upcoming book: Ageless Smile: What You Need to Know About Midlife Dentistry (Foghorn Communications, January 2009). In it I describe how these common midlife dental symptoms can be related to one another:
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Thinning lips.
- Wrinkles and sagging around your mouth and jaw.
- Wearing down of your teeth causing a collapse in your mouth area.
- Missing or cracked teeth.
- Increased pressure in your head and sinuses.
- Facial pain.
- Dark fillings that show when you laugh or smile.
- Neck and low back pain.
- Needing root canals on one side of your mouth.
Midlife dentistry begins with dental treatment that corrects structural problems while restoring balance to your head, neck and jaw. This can eliminate pain not normally associated with a dental condition. Only with a solid foundation in place will dental implants and other cosmetic options like veneers and crowns feel natural and last.
Dentistry is engineering on a much smaller scale. Even a few millimeters of imbalance can create health problems and pain.
If you want to update an aging smile with dental implants and crowns, realize that advertisements for immediate implants are not right for many people. If you are already experiencing head pain, you want to make sure your cosmetic dentistry is performed by someone to takes an orthopedic approach.
Note: This is not an endorsement of Dr. Pagano's services but offered as a public service. Please use care and due diligence whenever seeking professional services of any kind.
If you'd like to be featured as a Guest Poster on a topic relevant to midlife, please drop me an email. If I believe there's value to my readership, I'll gladly offer you the space.
