New complete denture wearers often have the following concerns:

Full feeling: When new dentures are first placed in the mouth, the patient may perceive a feeling of fullness or a lack of adequate space for the tongue. This is particularly true for patients that have been without natural teeth or prosthetic replacements for extended periods. The bulky feeling of the new denture should subside after a short time. The individual may also experience this full sensation with facial tissues, lips, and cheeks. The new denture typically helps regain the facial tissue support that was lost due to missing teeth. The facial tissues adapt rapidly to their new support system, which improves comfort and appearance.

Speech difficulty: The sounds we produce during normal conversation are greatly influenced by the position and contours of the face’s oral structures, including teeth. With a new denture, the patient must adjust to subtle alterations in tooth position and denture base shape. These minor changes in speech sounds are usually more noticeable to the patient than others and are only temporary. During this short period of accommodation, the patient should try to speak slowly and clearly, pronouncing words very precisely. The tongue and facial muscles will quickly adapt. Reading out loud may help.

Sore spots and irritations: Localized and frequently painful sore spots may develop following the placement of a new complete denture. This requires careful adjustments to be made to the dentures, minor grinding on the pink denture plastic around the sore spot, or precise adjustment of the contacts between opposing denture teeth. When sore spots occur, the patient must inform the dentists as soon as possible to have the appropriate correction made.

Chewing patterns: The patient must adjust to the precise jaw movements required to effectively chew food. This may take several weeks. The re-learning process should begin with small pieces of soft food, gradually increasing the food’s firmness over time. Denture stability during chewing generally improves if the food is chewed on both sides of the mouth at the same time using only the back teeth. Using the front teeth to cut through food typically causes the dentures to loosen and move away from the gums. Front teeth are considered primarily for appearance and speech.

Psychological wellbeing: A denture patient needs to take control of their situation and keep a positive attitude for optimal results. Working closely with the dentists is essential to successfully adapt to new complete dentures!

Complete dentures may not be a perfect replacement for natural teeth but they have been proven to restore the patient’s ability to comfortably smile, chew, swallow, and speak, which significantly improve their quality of life. For patients with reasonable expectations, they can get used to complete dentures in a relatively short time. Patients must practice with their new teeth and learn the limitations and compensations needed to achieve successful adaptation.

The advantages include:

• A patient never has to be without their teeth, which improves their day-to-day life
• The immediate denture helps to protect the tooth extraction site during healing.

Another alternative is to extract all teeth at one time but to hold off on placing an immediate denture while the extraction sites heal. Because the need for an immediate denture is eliminated with this treatment, this can be a more economical approach. However, the patient must be without teeth for several months.

Following proper healing, the definitive denture is constructed. In our office the vast majority of new denture wearers choose the New Wearer package that includes an economy immediate denture. The final deluxe denture is fabricated after healing is complete.

Approximately six months later, it may be necessary to complete a denture reline procedure to accurately adapt the denture to the gums following additional recontouring and jawbone healing. The frequency of relines over the life of the denture is an individual matter and is best determined by a licensed dentist during follow-up examinations.

The immediate denture holds tissues together, supports clot formation, and protects the extraction sites from debris contamination. As healing progresses over the next several weeks, the immediate denture will loosen due to changes in the contour of the gums and jawbone. Temporary denture liners may be placed to help maintain a reasonable fit. Denture adhesives may also be used to assist in denture retention and stability.

Seeing a dentist for regular and comprehensive examinations is essential to ensure the continued proper functioning of the denture. This is also important for your overall dental health.

Regular exams evaluate a proper relationship between the upper and the lower jaws which help improve the denture’s and patient’s appearance and help provide optimal support to the facial tissues and prevent premature sagging. This ensures the temporomandibular joints (TMJs), which are the joints located in front of each ear, don’t experience unhealthy bone remodeling (which may cause improper jaw function, headaches, and neck pains). Exams also help detect serious oral conditions, such as cancer, which can then be treated in earlier stages.

The main reasons to schedule routine check-ups for your denture include:

• Your denture may loosen: The jawbone often shrinks in size due to bone resorption (gradual and continuing bone loss), which happens following the loss of all natural teeth.
• Your denture may wear: This process may be faster if the patient unconsciously grinds, or bruxes, the teeth together. Uneven and irregular tooth wear may develop if the denture shifts as it becomes loose. This may accelerate bone resorption.
• Your denture may cause sore spots: With the loosening and wear of the denture, its shifting against the underlying gum tissue frequently results in irritation and soreness of the gums. This is a gradual and continuous process that may result in progressive bone loss, thinning of overlying gum tissues, and the need to prematurely replace a denture.

Regular dental exams help detect such problems and correct them promptly to prevent damage to the dentures and/or the mouth. Treatment may involve relining or rebasing the denture. This process adds acrylic to the inside of a denture to reestablish an accurate fit. Individual denture teeth can also be treated appropriately.

All dentures require regular maintenance to accommodate changes in the patient’s jaw and to repair and/or replace any of the denture materials that need it. Some maintenance operations can be done within a single visit while others may require several days.

If the patient has a duplicate or spare denture, it may facilitate their day-to-day life during lengthy maintenance procedures. This second denture is usually made immediately after the patient gets a new denture, although it may be constructed at any time. This other denture is not of the same quality as the original one but is appropriate for its intended short-term use. Its cost is normally considerably less than the primary denture. All of our New Wearer denture patients have 2 dentures as part of their treatment.

Even the strongest denture plastics are susceptible to both fracture and wear under certain circumstances. Accidentally dropping the denture onto a hard surface may result in fractures of the pink denture base or chipping of the denture teeth. Exceptionally strong biting force or subconscious grinding of the teeth causes extra wear. Vigorous scrubbing of the denture with highly abrasive cleaning agents like toothpaste and overly stiff brushes may result in a slow deterioration of both the denture base and denture teeth, making them susceptible to fracture.

Every patient’s denture needs are different, but a dentist generally takes the following factors into account when evaluating the necessity to replace a denture:

Vertical dimension: Unique to each person, the linear distance between the upper jaw and the lower jaw is called the “vertical dimension.” A dentist physically measures this distance on a patient in a relaxed, upright posture between two dots placed on the patient: one on the tip of their nose and the other on their chin. In the years following the loss of natural teeth, the jawbone both changes shape and shrinks, which may cause the patient’s nose and chin to become closer and their dentures to become loose. Since this loss of vertical dimension is a slow, but progressive, phenomenon, the patients may have gradually adapted to their changing condition.

Outward signs of the loss of vertical dimension may include: A shrunken, hollow facial appearance, pronounced witches chin or discomfort in the TMJ joints.

Relining the denture may correct the situation. The dentist would add extra pink denture plastic to the inside of a loose denture to regain stability. Unfortunately, relining does not predictably and accurately restore the patient’s optimal vertical dimension. More advance loss in the vertical dimension generally requires the construction of a new complete denture.

Tooth wear: Excess wear of the denture teeth contributes to problems associated with lost vertical dimension and chewing function.

Deterioration of denture materials: The deterioration, wear, and dimensional changes that happen over time will eventually require a denture replacement. Aging pink denture plastic loses its natural appearance, making it look artificial. Deteriorating denture plastics may also become excessively contaminated with microorganisms, which may contribute to mouth irritations, bad tastes, and socially unacceptable odors.

Dentures should typically be replaced every four to eight years for optimal condition and oral health. Replacing a complete denture is usually due to: Deterioration of the materials used to construct the dentures or irreversible changes in the contour of the patient’s jaws that impact their denture’s fit.

Denture adhesives increase the required cleaning time for both the denture and the mouth and the patient may develop a false sense of security with a denture that requires professional maintenance, adjustment, or even replacement.

Adhesives improve denture retention by effectively filling the gap between a denture’s plastic and the underlying gum tissue and help facilitate acceptance of new dentures and builds the patient’s confidence.

Denture Adhesives may also assist the patient in opening their mouth wider for more confident biting and chewing and decrease the irritation due to denture movement across the gums if the patient has a habit of grinding their teeth.

Removing the adhesive from the denture can be difficult. The denture is best cleaned with a denture brush, soap, and running warm water, or with a weak solution of white vinegar in water.

All adhesives should be removed from the mouth daily, which involves vigorous rinsing with warm water or saltwater. Using a soft-bristled toothbrush or a washcloth helps remove the adhesive from the oral tissue.

Pea-sized portions of the paste should be placed in the jaw ridge and palate portions of the upper denture. A thin film of adhesive will spread across the denture’s surface before placing the denture in the mouth. If the patient notices that excess amounts of adhesive are required to achieve acceptable retention, they should see their dentist.

The patient may need to experiment with how often to apply adhesives. Some apply it before each meal while others are fine with only one daily application.

Regardless of the denture fabrication process, there is always a slight space between the pink denture plastic and the patient’s gums. This space is present due to fabrication limitations and the continuous changing contours of the jawbone over time.

Typically, a slight space between the denture plastic and the gums is filled with saliva, resulting in an adequately retained denture. However, as this gap increases the denture becomes less retentive and stable. Denture adhesives help minimize this space and increase a denture’s function and retention, which helps to reduce the collection of food debris between the denture and the gums.

Some disadvantages, include continuous deterioration, hardening over time, and the growth of microorganisms. They must be replaced regularly which is an added expense. Due to pain reduction, patients may skip recommended exams and necessary denture repairs and adjustments.

They are more expensive than conventional hard denture liners and also require a minimum thickness which comes at the expense of the hard pink base material thereby weakening the denture.

One advantage is it provides a soft denture surface for patients with sensitive gum tissues and conforms to the constantly changing contours of the jawbone’s surface.