What your Lips have to say about your Oral Health

what your lips say about your oral healthScotts Valley and Santa Cruz, CA

For a highly trained dentist, reading lips is about more than interpreting what a person is saying. Your Scotts Valley oral health experts at Ebrahimian Integrative Dentistry can “read” your lips and identify many problems with your oral health even before you open your mouth. Our dentists, Drs. Max and Ariana Ebrahimian, achieve this by examining the oral resting posture of your mouth.

Lip incompetence is a warning sign of problems with your oral health

Lip incompetence refers to the condition when a person is unable to maintain a comfortable oral resting posture with the lips closed, and teeth together. If a person with lip incompetence does attempt to close their lips, then a dentist can identify a visible strain of the surrounding facial musculature.

A person with lip incompetence can experience a variety of different oral health problems, including problems with the eruption of permanent teeth in children or the alignment of the bite. Lip incompetence also can cause difficulties with breathing, swallowing, and the function of jaw joints. Left unresolved, lip competence actually can alter the shape of your face, as your orofacial muscles compensate for living without a lip seal for a prolonged period of time. Narrow dental arches and crowded teeth also may manifest as a result of lip incompetence.

Can you comfortably close your mouth and lips? Can your children do the same? If the answer is no, then a case of lip incompetence could be the problem.

Comprehensive dental services in Scotts Valley

At Ebrahimian Integrative Dentistry, we offer a wide array of services going far beyond just filling cavities and performing root canals. Our dentists, Drs. Max and Ariana Ebrahimian, believe in taking a greater view of the oral health of our patients. That is applied through neuromuscular dentistry, a specialization in dental science focusing on the alignment of the bite and jaw, and focus on the greater orofacial harmony by offering services such as myofunctional therapy. Consisting of a program of simple, painless exercises, myofunctional therapy works the orofacial muscles and tongue to resolve a variety of problems including jaw alignment, negative oral habits, poor tongue posture, and lip incompetence.

One of the goals of myofunctional therapy is to achieve optimum oral resting posture—defined as having the lips closed and teeth together with the tongue resting gently against the upper palate. Achieving this oral resting posture encourages an open airway, wide dental arches, and nasal breathing, which has a host of different health benefits. This ideal oral resting posture is not possible if someone suffers from lip incompetence.

Orofacial Myologist in Scotts Valley

Ebrahimian Integrative Dentistry is proud to be one of the few dental practices in the Scotts Valley area to offer myofunctional therapy. One of our dental hygienists, Dr. Jean Shimizu, is a licensed myofunctional therapist. To learn more about myofunctional therapy and how you might benefit from a course of these exercises, contact our office today at (831) 438-4411 to schedule a consultation.

Ebrahimian Integrative Dentistry serves patients located in the California communities of Los Gatos, Santa Cruz, and Scotts Valley.