Full Transcript Menopause and Oral Health Overview 0:00 Hot flashes and mood swings get all the attention. 0:03 But what does menopause do to your mouth? 0:06 Menopause can lead to low saliva in the mouth, to burning gums, bleeding gums, and even gum recession and bone loss. 0:15 These are all things that are so important to understand. 0:19 We often forget about the mouth when we're worried about menopause and hormone changes, but keep watching because I'm going to talk about what it does 0:27 to your mouth and how to help. 0:29 If you're experiencing some strange mouth symptoms that you've not had in the past and you're at that certain time of life where you're thinking about menopause, 0:40 then it's really important to think perhaps this is hormone related. 0:44 I see so many women who are going through this time of life. 0:48 I'm right there with you and things are different than they used to be. 0:52 all of a sudden the oral hygiene that you used to do isn't seeming to keep up and you get new cavities. 0:58 I remember one woman in particular, she was so incredibly meticulous with her oral health and I saw her every six months on the dot. 1:08 She never missed an appointment. 1:10 So everything was great.
Hormone Changes and New Dental Problems 1:12 One visit and I saw her again in six months and she had six cavities all along the gum line. 1:19 I asked, what's changed? 1:21 And she said, nothing. 1:23 I'm eating exactly the same. 1:25 I'm drinking exactly the same. 1:26 I am using the exact same toothpaste and mouthwash. 1:29 I mean, nothing had changed about what she was doing. 1:33 But then she sat there and she said, but I'm also at that time of life. 1:37 You know, she was in her mid fifties. 1:40 She said, do you think that maybe menopause has something to do with it? 1:44 The answer is yes. 1:45 So how does menopause affect your mouth? 1:49 Well, the biggest change that happens in menopause is a change in hormones, particularly a decrease in estrogen. 1:56 Well, estrogen does a lot of really great things for a woman's body. 2:01 It helps saliva production. 2:03 It helps encourage that salivary production. 2:05 That's a big one. 2:06 And we'll talk about that one. 2:08 The other thing it does is it really supports soft tissues and decreases inflammation. 2:14 So now we've dealt with saliva, we've dealt with gums. 2:18 The other thing it does is it affects and influences bone health. 2:23 So now we're talking about jawbones. 2:26 Well, we always think about how this affects us overall, but let's talk about all three of those things. 2:31 First of all, saliva. 2:33 Saliva is the natural protectant in the mouth. 2:37 It comes into the mouth to wash away bacteria, to wash away food particles, and to actually raise the pH in the mouth so it's not so acidic. 2:45 If saliva is not there, first of all, it's a little uncomfortable.
How Estrogen Affects Saliva, Gums, and Bone 2:48 And I myself have even noticed this a bit. 2:51 I find myself needing a little bit more water or kind of licking my lips a little bit more, that kind of thing. 2:57 Well, saliva is so crucial to prevent tooth decay. 3:02 and prevent gum disease. 3:03 So if your saliva is dropping, bacteria sits on the teeth longer. 3:08 That plaque stays there longer, saliva doesn't wash it away, and it makes you more prone to tooth decay, particularly along the gum line. 3:18 because that's where plaque congregates and underneath old crowns, underneath old fillings. 3:24 Why? 3:25 Because it's really difficult to clean in those areas. 3:28 So we see an increase in tooth decay along the gum line and underneath old dental work at about this time of life. 3:35 I'll get to what to do about it in a minute, but let's talk about the next thing with gum tissue. 3:41 So again, estrogen is great at making everything more flexible, all of your tissues more flexible, and it helps to control inflammation in the tissues. 3:50 So you may see symptoms elsewhere of low estrogen with brittle skin and dry skin. 3:57 The same thing goes for the mouth. 3:59 So if you have lower saliva, lower estrogen, we see bleeding gums more frequently. 4:05 Bleeding gums leads to more gum recession, more gum inflammation. 4:10 So if you've had amazing gums and all of a sudden now as you've hit menopause, you're seeing gum recession, your gums bleed a little more easily, 4:17 this is a low estrogen symptom. 4:20 The third one is bone changes, because again, estrogen is really important in the way that our bodies maintain bone density. 4:29 Without it, we don't maintain bone density the same. 4:32 We end up with osteoporosis in the long bones and other bones in the body, and we ended up with bone loss in the jaw. 4:39 Why does that matter? 4:41 Bone holds teeth in. 4:42 So if you're losing jawbone, you're gonna lose teeth. 4:45 All of these things are so important. 4:47 So let's talk about what do we actually do about it. 4:50 First of all, let's start with those teeth. 4:52 You have got to make sure that those teeth, that all of your teeth have an armor coating on them.
Protecting Teeth With Minerals and Hydroxyapatite 4:57 So that even if saliva is lowering because of hormonal changes, they are so cavity resistant. 5:04 How do you do this? 5:05 It's all about minerals. 5:06 This is also going to impact your bones for the good. 5:09 So pay attention here. 5:11 You need more minerals in and you need more minerals on the outside. 5:15 So the minerals in piece. 5:16 First of all, I recommend tooth and bone formula. 5:18 What it is, is it's bone and tooth specific minerals. 5:22 The things that your bone teeth need to grow and be strong. 5:24 The second thing you need to pair that with is vitamin D3 and vitamin K2. 5:29 Why? 5:30 Well, vitamin D3 take minerals out of circulation and vitamin K2 put them into cells. 5:36 So you can have all the minerals in the world, but if you don't have those two vitamins, you're not going to get them into the cells and where you need 5:42 them to go. 5:43 So that's on the inside, tooth and bone formula, vitamin D3, K2. 5:47 On the outside, you need hydroxyapatite. 5:50 What is that? 5:51 It's simply the mineral complex the teeth are made of. 5:54 So I recommend tooth powder, or toothpaste that contains hydroxyapatite, followed by a mouthwash that contains hydroxyapatite. 6:02 And I need you to do this right before you go to bed. 6:05 That's often the time when your teeth are most susceptible. 6:08 saliva in the mouth drops during sleep already and if you have even less saliva because of low estrogen this is really a dangerous time for you. 6:17 So right before you go to bed you're going to brush with a hydroxyapatite tooth product and then rinse with a hydroxyapatite tooth product and you're going 6:24 to do the again first thing in the morning. 6:26 You really need to build up and protect those teeth. 6:30 Now from an inflammation standpoint, how do you help that? 6:33 And a saliva stimulating standpoint. 6:35 Well, I have a fabulous mouthwash that includes something called marshmallow root. 6:39 Marshmallow root naturally stimulates saliva as well as creating kind of a layer on the teeth that you don't necessarily feel but allows all of that good 6:52 healing hydroxyapatite to stay right up against the teeth and the gums. 6:57 So for saliva absolutely you're going to use something that has hydroxyapatite because they are going to again just give hydroxyapatite to your mouth when 7:06 it's dry. 7:07 You can also find some herbals like marshmallow root that are good at naturally stimulating saliva. 7:12 How about that gum tissue? 7:14 All of the things that I just described with saliva are also going to help your gum tissue.
Supporting Saliva and Gum Health 7:18 I have a gum health mouthwash that's particularly good because it has something called protectin that's a prebiotic. 7:25 What it's doing is encouraging good bacteria to grow and killing off the bad bacteria. 7:30 So it's going to keep your mouth in balance. 7:33 Isn't that what we want when we're going through menopause is just that balance that we seem to all be lacking right now. 7:40 I remember a woman, her name was Jackie and she was really struggling with gum disease. 7:44 She actually was type one diabetic. 7:46 So she already had a predisposition to this, but then she hit about 55 years old and things went drastically downhill. 7:54 She started losing all sorts of bone around the teeth and the gums will follow. 7:58 So she was having massive gum recession and she was really nervous. 8:02 She was going to lose all of her teeth. 8:03 And honestly, she was heading there. 8:06 So what did we do? 8:06 We first of all got her immediately on the tooth and bone formula, the vitamin D3K2, and started her using the hydroxyapatite tooth patter and mouthwash. 8:15 Minerals in, minerals out. 8:17 You have to do this. 8:19 The other thing you really need is you need somebody talking about this when you're in the dental office. 8:23 So if you are visiting a dentist that doesn't talk about hormones, that doesn't even acknowledge the fact that things have changed for you, 8:31 then it's time to find a new dentist. 8:33 You can find one that knows these things on my directory at livingwellwithdrmichelle.com. 8:37 Go to the directory, give them a call and say, what do you know about how menopause affects your overall health and particularly the mouth?
Finding Hormone-Aware Dental Care 8:45 What can I do to help myself with this? 8:48 Because our bodies, we deserve somebody who has some ideas for us and can really support us through these different times of life. 8:56 It's interesting because years ago, there was a researcher named Dr. 8:59 Melvin Page, and he researched the impact that hormones have on cavities and on oral health. 9:06 Unfortunately, his research, clear from the 1940s, has kind of fallen on deaf ears in the dental community at large. 9:12 So find somebody that has paid attention to this research and knows what to do about it. 9:18 This is worth finding out about because your mouth health is so crucial for your overall health and your hormones do have a part to play, 9:28 but there are things to do to make sure that you are balanced and writing out every single phase of your life. 9:35 Thank you for watching. 9:36 Hopefully this helps you to live well at any time of life.
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