There’s nothing we can do about the march of time. All we can do is try to spend it well. However, as we are using our time to the fullest–loving, laughing, and living–the very things that make life rich can leave their marks on our facial appearance.
If you’re unhappy with the way these marks are making you look older than you feel, you might consider rejuvenation approaches. You know you don’t want surgery, but you hope there is a way to look a little younger without surgery. You’re in luck. At Beyond Exceptional Dentistry in Savannah, GA, our cosmetic dentists offer not one but four nonsurgical ways to help you look younger. Which is right for you depends on how aging has affected you.
Nonsurgical Facelift
A nonsurgical facelift is a powerful rejuvenation tool. Your teeth provide an essential foundation for your facial structure. Your skin, muscles, and other facial structures developed with your teeth to create your initial youthful appearance.
As your teeth wear down from biting, chewing, grinding, and trauma, they get smaller. This makes your facial structure shrink. However, your skin, muscles, and facial fat don’t shrink. Instead, they simply hang in excess, which can cause many aging effects. Turkey neck, jowls, facial folds, and many wrinkles form because of this disparity. A nonsurgical facelift builds your teeth up to restore your youthful proportions. With your facial structure rebuilt, your skin will stretch more smoothly over your face, with fewer wrinkles and less sagging.
A nonsurgical facelift also has the added benefit of rejuvenating your smile, which can take several years off your appearance as well.
The Denture Fountain of Youth®
But what if you’ve lost all your teeth? What can you do to rebuild your facial structure? Ideally, dentures should do this. Dentures are supposed to perform all the functions of your teeth. In addition to letting you bite, speak, and smile normally, they should support your face.
Unfortunately, traditional dentures just aren’t designed to do that. Dentures are a centuries-old technology, and the traditional dentures process retains many legacy features. Most denture dentists don’t know how to measure your face’s original proportions and don’t care to try.
Developed by Savannah denture dentist Dr. Rod Strickland, the Denture Fountain of Youth® process takes the time to fit your new dentures not just to your gums but to your entire face. The fitting process reads the traces of your facial proportions from the skin, muscles, and other structures that remain. That way, your Fountain of Youth Dentures can restore your youthful proportions, rebuilding your facial support. This helps create taut skin and smoothness that looks more youthful and healthier.
In addition, Fountain of Youth Dentures are more secure and comfortable than traditional dentures. You’ll be able to bite and chew more effectively and won’t experience painful denture pinch points.
BOTOX® Cosmetic
In many ways, BOTOX® Cosmetic kicked off the nonsurgical rejuvenation revolution. Researchers started trying botulinum toxin to treat eye spasms when they noticed their patients looked younger. Once they discovered what the toxin was doing, they rushed to develop it as a cosmetic treatment.
Botulinum toxin causes what doctors describe as “flaccid paralysis.” In other words, your muscles can’t move, but they’re relaxed. In large doses, this can be deadly. However, in tiny doses injected at specific points, it can just relax a specific muscle. This relaxation effect gradually wears off as your nerve cells work around the botulinum toxin’s effects. The effects of BOTOX® Cosmetic last up to six months, depending on the treated area.
BOTOX® Cosmetic is highly effective on several specific types of wrinkles, though it is largely used on:
- Horizontal forehead lines
- Vertical lines between your eyebrows (glabellar lines, sometimes called “11”s)
- Crow’s feet
- Bunny lines around the nose
- Lipstick lines around your mouth
A Savannah cosmetic dentist can evaluate your wrinkles and determine which ones will respond best to BOTOX® Cosmetic.
Juvéderm
Juvéderm is another injectable rejuvenation treatment. It’s not just our teeth that can lose volume as we get older. In addition to your teeth wearing down, you might lose some fat on your face. In particular, we tend to lose fat from our lips and cheeks.
Juvéderm replaces lost fat with a hyaluronic acid gel. Hyaluronic acid is a natural substance found in places like your joints, skin, and eyes. It serves as a built-in moisturizer for these locations. Juvéderm takes advantage of the moisture-retaining properties of hyaluronic acid to last longer.
In addition to restoring lost volume to lips and cheeks, Juvéderm can fill in facial folds like nasolabial lines to smooth your facial appearance. Your Savannah cosmetic dentist can help you decide when it’s best to use Juvéderm to restore facial volume.
Facial Rejuvenation in Savannah
If you are unhappy with the visible effects of aging on your face, let Beyond Exceptional Dentistry in Savannah help. Our cosmetic dentists can evaluate your symptoms of aging and recommend the best treatments to give long-lasting rejuvenation so you can look as young as you feel.
Please call (912) 234-8282 or use our online form to request an appointment at Beyond Exceptional Dentistry in the Victorian District of Savannah.
