Did Dental Work Take Away Celine Dion's Voice?
Of course it did... otherwise I wouldn't have written about her! lol
A couple weeks back someone pinged me and mentioned I should look into Celine Dion.
I hadn’t heard her name in a long time and everytime I hear it I think of the song “My Heart Will Go On” as it was the theme song of the famous Titanic movie that came out in late 1997.
I remember listening to it as I pushed off on the ‘Semester at Sea’ voyage of 1998. We departed Bahamas in February 1998 and circumvented the world with about 600+ college students (mainly all Juniors) for 100 days. Stopping in places like Kenya, Vietnam, Venezuela and more.
It was an amazing journey that changed who I was and how I looked at the world.
After that I knew I needed to truly experience this world. Which I did a pretty good job of in the ensuing 20+ years…. as I’ve lived in 12 countries and traveled to about 90.
Each time I think about that life changing voyage… I have Celine’s song playing in my head.. as I played it on my cassette player as I waved to my dad when we pushed off.
Anyway back to Celine…. hahaha
For decades, her powerful voice earned her a place among the greatest vocalists of all time. However, in recent years, the Canadian superstar has faced a devastating health battle that has silenced her iconic voice and raised questions about potential causes.
While medical professionals attribute her vocal struggles to a rare neurological condition called stiff person syndrome, I of course blame biomechanics.
Let’s dig in….
Who is Celine Dion?
Celine Dion stands as one of the most successful recording artists in music history, with global album sales exceeding 200 million copies.
Born in Quebec, Canada, in 1968, Dion rose to international fame in the 1990s with powerhouse ballads that showcased her extraordinary four-octave vocal range.
Her career reached its pinnacle with "My Heart Will Go On," the theme song from the blockbuster film Titanic, which became one of the best-selling singles of all time.
She’s won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year.
Her influence on popular music cannot be overstated.
What Happened to Her?
Celine is currently battling a serious neurological condition called stiff person syndrome, a diagnosis that has dramatically altered her life and career.
She revealed her stiff-person syndrome diagnosis in December 2022 after years of struggling with mysterious symptoms that affected her ability to perform.
It’s written that she knew something wasn't right with her body for more than a decade before she received a diagnosis. The earliest signs appeared during her 2008 "Taking Chances World Tour," when "Quite rapidly, I was having difficulty controlling my voice," Dion said. Initially, doctors found no abnormalities in her vocal cords, leading to years of uncertainty and continued symptoms.
Stiff person syndrome is characterized by muscle rigidity and spasms, heightened sensitivity to stimuli such as sound and lights, and emotional distress that can cause muscle spasms.
For Dion, this rare condition affects every aspect of her daily life. "It's like somebody is strangling you. It's like somebody is pushing your larynx/pharynx," she said, describing how the syndrome impacts her voice.
The physical manifestations of her condition are severe and debilitating. "It feels like, if I point my feet, they will stay in [that position]," she explained. "Or, if I cook — because I love to cook — my fingers, my hands, will get in position. ... It's cramping but it's like in a position where you cannot unlock them." "I had broken ribs at one point because sometimes when it's very severe, it can break some ribs as well."
The impact on her career has been devastating. In 2022, she canceled all of her upcoming performances and hasn’t performed since.
Could It Be the Dental Work She Did?
Throughout her career, Celine Dion has undergone significant dental transformations that have dramatically changed her smile.
In her early days, Dion had what many considered an imperfect smile with crooked and discolored teeth, and—most prominent of all—abnormally large cuspid or "canine" teeth.
They were so noticeable that one Quebec celebrity magazine gave her the unflattering nickname "Canine Dion."
The transformation of her smile was extensive and occurred relatively early in her career. Around the age of 18 (around 1986), her manager, René Angélil, orchestrated a comprehensive makeover that included capping her canine teeth.
The dental work wasn't a one-time procedure but rather an ongoing process that evolved throughout her career that almost definitely included veneers.
And in 2008 at least one article claimed that she had replaced her veneers as you should do about every 10 years or so.
She’s probably also changed her veneers at least one or two more times after that.
So Is It Connected?
Her first noticeable vocal difficulties began appearing around 2008 – roughly two decades after her initial dental modifications, which would have happened around 1986.
And this is a bit too long for nothing to show. So i don’t think the initial work was the key damage.
Rather I have a feeling it was some of the follow-on work that she did most likely in the early 2000’s.
Perhaps when they were changing veneers they also did something that ended up changing the occlusion and messing up the multiple bite positions that are needed to keep the natural biomechanics of the bite intact.
Which is something i explained in this article… that the jaw needs several supported positions and not just one:
Also when she mentioned things like feeling like someone is "strangling you" and "pushing your larynx/pharynx" when trying to sing this reminded me a lot of my own voice issues that i had from my mid 20’s till my mid 30’s.
And my experience was that it was kind of a slow collapse rather than a fast one. The tightness just got a bit worse each year but i still functioned. And it was annoying as hell on the voice as it stole the resonance from it.
I have a feeling something similar happened to her…. and that biomechanical collapse was the culprit.
Closing Thoughts
Celine Dion is today just 57 years old. She is still a relatively young woman.
And she had very solid structure early on… which is what probably helped give her the powerful voice to begin with.
But in recent years you can tell both her health and her appearance have declined a lot.
Plus she has a neurological disorder, which is something I will pretty much always attribute to biomechanical collapse. Because I have a feeling almost all neurological disorders will one day be tied to the skull’s collapse in on the brain.
Something I, myself, experienced and reversed out of several times the past ten years.
But hopefully one day biomechanics will be her savior. A bit like the Titanic door that Jack put Rose on so she’d survive.
