Imagine predicting a world without smiles. Covid masks have been with us for 17 months now. Throughout that time, men, women and children have “faced” an unsparing absence of the beaming, the grins, the friendliness and express graciousness that is the smile.
Facial expressions, led by the smile, are so important in society that we have emojis or smileys as communicators. Our quality of life is affected by a smile and our overall robustness follows suit interchangeably.
Just as oral health commands the domain of refined self perception, optimal functioning, and future disease inhibition, unchecked oral health advances us towards physical limitation and disability, inhibiting our social, psychological, and economic roles by impacting speech and eating as well as harboring bacteria-fed disease.
In most cultures poor health means poor quality of life. In our office, it’s not our belief that you must cope with or adapt to the painful jaw, misaligned bite, uncorrected tooth spacing.
While Covid held the perimeter in our society, a number of practical patients saw the opportunity inherent to masking and dropped 30-40+ year barriers previously holding them back from the repair of agitating malocclusions. As these innovators settled into their orthodontic treatment they surely and inadvertently lead the way from groundless hesitancy, to taking tentative steps into a newly opening world where the only contagion is that of a smile.
October 1st is World Smile Day, a professional opinion on your dental health including an evaluation of your tooth color, gum line, teeth spacing and bite can add to your general well-being and reveal your path to a healthy, assured, enticing smile.