Tips For Denture Wearers

Just because you wear dentures doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay attention to your oral health.  Many of the patients at Tavomina Dentistry have come to us and become a part of our dental family because they were unhappy or couldn’t function with their dentures.  Many of these people have been helped and had the quality of their lives transformed miraculously with dental implants, some of them were able to be comfortable with a combination of an upper denture and dental implants on the lower jaw (dentures secured to the implants or crowns placed on the implants), and some just needed new dentures to be made that truly custom fit to their mouths.

Hopefully, if you have a denture, you truly have a custom made denture that took at least five visits to the dentist and time between visits to give the dental laboratory technician the time to customize your denture to your satisfaction.  Even if you did have a well made denture with the best dental practices, having a denture means you don’t have teeth, and when you don’t have teeth, there’s no reason for the dental bone to stay.  Nature does its job by dissolving the dental bone when no teeth are present (this process is called resorption).

Resorption is the main reason that you have to periodically make a new denture.  The tissues in the mouth change over time because of this bone loss, and the bone and gum ridges shrink.  This results in ill-fitting dentures that make eating difficult and even painful at times.  The American Dental Association recommends replacing your dentures every 5 to 7 years, but unfortunately, many people hold on to their dentures much longer.

If you notice that you are using a lot of denture adhesive, it might be time for a denture replacement.  If you use more than one tube of denture paste every three weeks, your dentures may not fit properly and should be evaluated for replacement or relining or rebasing.  Relining replaces the denture material that directly touches the gums and rebasing keeps the present teeth and replaces all of the pink denture material.  Usually denture teeth are worn as well and it’s best to get a new denture.

It’s very important to clean your gums to avoid plaque building up under your dentures, and clean your dentures at night to avoid bacteria growth.  Have a dental checkup at least once a year to check the fit of your dentures to make sure the fit of your dentures isn’t accelerating the bone loss process and to have a cancer screening.  A person is dying every hour of mouth cancer.

For information about other dental topics and denture alternatives visit www.TavorminaDentistry.com or call us at 973-761-5090.