Age comes for us all, and it seems that the last few years have taken a heavier toll than average. If you’re like many of us and are noticing a few more wrinkles every time you look in the mirror, you might be considering ways to restore your youthful appearance.
One approach to looking younger that people often overlook is a non-surgical facelift using cosmetic dentistry. Teeth provide vital support for your facial structure, and when they wear down, break, or are lost, they can speed the visible aging process in your face. Fortunately, cosmetic dentistry lets us reverse some of these visible signs of aging to help you look younger than your age.
Here are some of the common signs of aging that St. Louis cosmetic dentist Dr.Chris Hill can mediate with a non-surgical facelift.
Aged Smile
Don’t neglect the fact that your smile can age you. If you don’t show any teeth when you smile, it makes you look older. It also makes you look older if your teeth are badly worn, discolored, or if one or two are missing.
Brightening your teeth and building them up again can help you look years younger. Dental veneers are the best way to both brighten and lengthen your teeth at the same time. St. Louis cosmetic dentist Dr. Hill can use them separately or as part of a non-surgical facelift.
Thin Lips
Thick, full lips are a sign of voluptuous youth. As teeth lose their height, what we call the vertical dimension of occlusion (VDO), your lips compress. This makes lips look thin. Some cosmetic dentistry and tooth replacements like traditional dentures might not help with this. People with traditional dentures may end up with lips that fold inward because their VDO isn’t right. To restore your youthful lips, your St. Louis cosmetic dentist must restore the proper, youthful proportions of your teeth, something that many neglect.
Sunken Cheeks
Your teeth support your cheeks. Without a full set of large, healthy teeth, your cheeks can sink inward, creating an aged, haggard appearance. Traditional dentures do a very bad job of restoring fullness to cheeks.
However, with FOY® Dentures, St. Louis cosmetic dentist Dr. Hill uses an understanding of your teeth as part of your jaw system to get a result that provides more support to the cheeks to restore an energetic, youthful appearance.
Jowls
Jowls occur when the fat pads in your cheek sag down below your jawline. However, the appearance of jowls isn’t all caused by sagging. Some of it is due to the jaw rising up because tooth wear shrinks the distance between the upper and lower jaws, the VDO.
Restoring the proper VDO with a non-surgical facelift can reduce the appearance of jowls.
Wrinkles and Folds around the Mouth
As your VDO shrinks, it leads to skin creasing and folding around the mouth. This leads to small wrinkles around the mouth, such as vertical lip lines or perioral wrinkles, sometimes called lipstick lines or smoker’s lines. It might also contribute to nasolabial folds, also known as parentheses lines around the mouth.
By restoring your youthful VDO, a non-surgical facelift can help you look younger.
Double Chin or Turkey Neck
The area under the chin depends on the jaw for support. If your jaw doesn’t provide enough support, it can lead to two common symptoms of facial aging: double chin and turkey neck. When fat accumulates in the area under the chin but isn’t well supported, it creates a double chin. If a person has little fat in the neck area, the lack of support makes loose hanging skin that resembles a turkey’s wattle, so it’s called turkey neck.
Restoring VDO helps the jaw support the neck area better, diminishing the appearance of a double chin or turkey neck.
Witch’s Chin
There are several symptoms of facial aging that go by the name “witch’s chin,” but we’re talking about what plastic surgeons call “ptotic chin” or sagging chin. This occurs when the chin’s fat pad sags below the bony support of the chin. This might be caused by sagging skin, but a chin that moves upward because of shrinking teeth can make this worse.
Restoring VDO puts the bony support of the chin and its fat pad in a more attractive relationship to reduce the appearance of a witch’s chin.
Why a Non-Surgical Facelift Might Be Better for You
Many people think of a surgical facelift when they want to restore their youthful appearance. However, in some cases, a non-surgical facelift is better. Plastic surgeons often look at all the sagging or folding skin and tissues as being “excess,” so they cut it away and pull the remaining skin tight across your bones.
However, the problem might not be an excess of skin but a shortage of support. In this case, cutting away skin to tighten it can change your appearance. Restoring support from your teeth and jaws might be a better approach to helping you look young while still looking like yourself.
Learn about Non-Surgical Facelifts in St. Louis
Want to learn whether you’re a good candidate for a non-surgical facelift? Schedule a consultation with St. Louis cosmetic dentist Dr. Chris Hill so he can evaluate your teeth and jaws. He can tell you what results you might expect from a non-surgical facelift.
Please email us today to schedule an appointment, or call (314) 678-7876 for our office in St. Louis, located in Richmond Heights, MO.
