If you have lost all of your teeth or just some from periodontal disease, tooth decay or injury, dentures (false teeth) or partials can replace your missing teeth and give you back your smile you can be more confident about. Replacing missing teeth with dentures will benefit both your appearance and your overall health. Without support from the denture, facial muscles sag making a person look much older than they actually are. With dentures and partials, wearers can enjoy food again and can speak more clearly, two things often taken for granted until natural teeth are lost.
Advances in cosmetic dentistry have made many improvements in dentures. Dentures are now more natural-looking and much more comfortable than they used to be. Complete dentures cover your entire upper and lower jaw and partials replace one or a few teeth.
Complete Dentures
There are different types of complete dentures. A conventional full denture is made and placed in the patient's mouth after all the remaining teeth are removed and tissues have healed; this process may take several months. An immediate complete denture is put in the mouth as soon as the remaining teeth are removed. Your dentist will take measurements and make models of your jaws during your first visit. With immediate dentures, you do not have to be without teeth during the healing period.
With full dentures, just like your natural teeth, you must practice excellent oral hygiene. Brushing your gums, tongue and palate every morning with a soft-bristled toothbrush before you insert your dentures is necessary.
Partial Dentures
If you are missing only a few teeth scattered over either arch (upper or lower teeth) or if you have a minimum of two teeth on both sides of the arch, then you can replace the missing teeth with a removable partial denture (RPD).
A partial denture is a removable dental appliance that replaces multiple missing teeth. A partial can be attached to the teeth with clasps or it can be attached with crowns and hidden clasps. Both types have a metal framework and plastic teeth and gum areas.
Dentures accelerate the aging process of the face because the distance between your nose and your chin begins to decrease as natural teeth are extracted. The bone that formerly held your top natural teeth begins to retreat up toward your nose, and the bone that held your lower teeth goes down, allowing both the top and bottom false teeth to follow in the same directions.
Dentures don't last forever, and you must return every two years for what is called a "reline." The longer you wear dentures, the more your gums change underneath the denture and the looser the dentures become. In order to restore the denture and to prevent flabby gum tissue under it, you should have the denture professionally relined every two years. Dentures typically need to be replaced every five to seven years.
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