“Don’t sweat the small stuff, wear sunscreen, don’t cut your own bangs, be confident, love yourself, reapply your sunscreen, and wear your retainer! After that, everything else will fall into place.” Well, that’s what we’d say anyway.
All this infinite wisdom doesn’t come for free; our bodies suffer some wear and tear to gain their vintage appeal. Some of these signs of aging show in our face. They can be environmental from things like eating acidic foods, not properly caring for our skin, or clenching and grinding our teeth. Some things we end up with genetically, and much like the reindeer sweater your Nana made you for Christmas last year, you may not want it, but you can’t say no.
We have to tell you something, are you ready? Ok, here it goes….Our lips look the best they ever will at age 14! There….we said it! What a waste, right? Maybe if we knew, we would have spent more time smiling as teenagers. We can lose lip support for several different reasons. As time goes on, our teeth can move, sometimes they seem to lean inward, or become crowded like they are all squeezing together for a group picture. As a result, our faces can look older and our smile can actually look smaller. More bad news…. you know that cute little space between your nose and the top of your upper lip, it actually gets longer over time. Thanks a lot gravity! This can make our lips look less full, and can also make less of our upper teeth show when we smile. Fun fact, this is where duck lips in selfies came from….ok not really, but it sounded like it could be legit. These changes happen subtly and over time, so you may not have noticed them right away until it seemed to be “too late” to stop them. We are almost done, put down your selfie stick so we can talk about solutions.
The most popular treatment for adults is a clear aligner system called Invisalign where you change to a new set of aligners every 7-14 days. Dr. Lyons can use Invisalign for almost any treatment that braces can be used for, and with the addition of accelerated treatment, your Orthodontics can be done up to twice as fast as before. And let’s be honest, your kids will be so mad if you finish your treatment faster than they did, so that’s always a BONUS! If you are not sure if Orthodontics can help you, email us a smile photo like the ones above to info@northseattleortho.com and we can let you know. Orthodontic care is also more convenient than ever before. Your visits can be less frequent because you can take several sets of aligners home with you, and many of your appointments can be done virtually! This gives you more time to do the fun things grown-ups do like go to work, drive your kids to sports, get groeries, pay bills, clean house, cook dinner , or whatever else you would like to do with your time. What doesn’t change is that we are always here if you need us, or if you just want to hang out in the lobby to drink coffee and read a magazine by yourself, we promise, we won’t tell you family.