We’ve talked a lot about how the loss of teeth leads to a loss of bone in the face, but it’s not just the loss of teeth that causes it. The changes in facial bones is actually a natural process that has its own cycle, which proceeds whether or not you lose teeth. Plastic surgeons have described it as a “concertina” effect, and it explains why certain changes occur in our facial appearance.
How Facial Bones Change with Age
In case you’re not familiar with it, a concertina is a kind of small accordion. Think about what happens when you press an accordion together and you’ll get the basic idea of the effect: as bones shrink, the wrinkles and folds in the face grow deeper.
In exploring the concertina effect, researchers stumbled on the answer to a simple mystery: why do babies have such fat, round faces? It’s because their bone structure is somewhat stunted and rounded. They essentially have too much skin and fat for their faces, which causes them to have jowls. The reason their face doesn’t have enough bone is that it doesn’t have teeth.
As we mature, the bone structure develops in order to support our teeth and the facial shape changes. Jowls disappear as the bone structure lengthens. During adulthood, we reach the maximum extent of facial bone, creating a face that matches our facial skin and fat.
Unfortunately, we begin to lose some of that bone mass as we get older. The loss of teeth accelerates the effect, but it would happen anyway. With the loss of bone, the face contracts, and the skin is forced to fold up like an accordion or else hang down off the side, so we develop deep creases and folds as well as jowls that hang down.
We Can Replicate the Effect of Lost Bone
There are many anti-aging treatments out there that will try to tell you to reduce wrinkles with skin treatments. This can help with fine lines that develop because your skin has lost elasticity, but it won’t rectify what’s happened because of lost bone. Nor will injectable fillers, which are soft materials. These can help replace lost facial fat, but they can’t mimic the effect of lost bone. And a facelift is a really bad approach to make up for the loss of bone. You can’t mimic the shape and proportion of bone by cutting and stretching skin.
But the Denture Fountain of Youth ® is one of the ways that we can really replace what you’ve lost. Dentures are rigid and solid and can replicate the way bone looked and functioned under your skin. It allows for some truly amazing facial rejuvenation, especially when secured by dental implants.
If you would like to learn more about how much younger you can look with the Denture Fountain of Youth ® in Columbia, SC, please call (803) 781-9090 for an appointment with a denture dentist at Smile Columbia Dentistry.
