Issue 47 | October 21, 2026

Dr. Allison C. Sceppaguercio first came onto our radar when a member of the NEWH community recommended her for The Midlife Bench. We often think about dental health as separate from the rest of our health. But in midlife, changes in hormones, sleep, medications, and inflammation can all show up in the mouth, sometimes in ways women may not recognize as connected. Dentists may also see their patients regularly, creating an important opportunity to notice changes and help women connect the dots. We spoke with Dr. Allison C. Sceppaguercio about what she sees in her practice and why oral health belongs in the larger conversation about women’s health.

 

 

Dr. Allison C. Sceppaguercio earned her DMD from Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, where she was inducted into the Omicron Kappa Upsilon National Dental Honor Society. She completed her general dentistry residency at Morristown Medical Center, providing advanced dental care and working alongside medical colleagues in the care of medically compromised patients. Dr. Sceppaguercio has also served as clinical faculty at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine and currently practices general dentistry in Clark, New Jersey.

We asked Dr. Sceppaguercio what women should know about oral health in midlife, and why the mouth deserves a place in the larger conversation about women’s health.

 

A: The things that women will vocalize most often are dry mouth and sometimes burning mouth. Dry mouth can be hormone-related, and there are dental implications. Someone who has never really been cavity-prone may suddenly become more cavity-prone, or they may feel like their mouth just is not lubricated the way it used to be.

 

A lot of these changes come down to changes in estrogen and progesterone. You can have increased inflammation and decreased blood flow in certain areas. The mouth is lined with mucous membranes, and those are some of the tissues that are most significantly impacted by sex hormones.

 

Burning mouth is also something we see, particularly in perimenopausal and menopausal women. It can feel like a persistent burning sensation on the tongue, and sometimes there are changes in taste as well. It can be difficult because burning mouth is often a diagnosis of elimination, and treatment is not always straightforward.

 

A: One of the other things that perimenopause and menopause impact, that patients often don't recognize on their own, is sleep changes. A lot of those have to do with hormone-mediated changes in the tone of the muscles in your airway, which decrease its volume. This can result in some degree of sleep-disordered breathing or sleep apnea that's not being recognized.

 

Part of the sleep-disordered breathing or sleep apnea cycle involves clenching and grinding your teeth, which can result in soreness of the jaw muscles and general fatigue of the oral system.

 

A: Consideration of medications is so important. Certain medications independently cause dry mouth, and then if you take multiple medications, they can have a concerted effect.  A dry mouth is like the kiss of death in so many ways. Healthy quantity and quality of saliva is integral in cleansing the mouth and remineralizing the teeth to strengthen them against decay.

GLP-1 type medications comprise a category of drugs that are proving to result in dry mouth. You may hear things like “Ozempic mouth” or “Ozempic tongue.” I do not know that the literature is convincing about this being a true side effect or syndrome, but it can look similar to burning mouth. The science suggests these symptoms may be related to nerve sensation or to dry mouth itself.

 

A: A healthy oral cavity tends to correlate with a healthy rest of your body. Your mouth is a mucous membrane, and it is encountering things all the time. The things you eat and drink, oral products you use, and the bacteria in your mouth are all being exposed to a permeable mucous membrane.

 

 

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