Discover All That Dentures Can Do for You
I was course director at the University of Connecticut for 10 years of complete dentures, so I know a lot about complete dentures.
I’ll give you an example. I mean, I know of probably 15 different ways that an upper denture will bite into a lower denture depending on your jaw.
Complete dentures are so misunderstood in dentistry. Some people do very well, some people don’t do very well, and a lot of the people that do well is they understand what’s going on.
Even the best well-made complete denture functions at about 20 percent of what you would function with when you had your own natural teeth. It’s better than nothing. I can help you guide it in that direction where you’re doing well, but it is an alternative when you have to have your teeth removed, or you had problems with your teeth.
When you get really well-made complete dentures, nobody should be able to tell the difference. They should look like a healthy, beautiful smile.
There is a procedure that can be done that’s called an implant-retained denture. If you have your teeth removed, you have no anchorage in your mouth anymore. These implants, you can put little attachments onto them, and the denture will snap onto the implants and give you some security so you’re never worrying whether it’s going to come out while you’re chewing or speaking.
The best alternative is actually, it’s called a fixed retained denture, where the denture is held in place and you don’t have to take it out. So it’s not a nightly thing that you have to take out every night. It stays in your mouth, fixed. It feels like your own teeth. You’re able to chew whatever you want to chew. It feels like normal teeth.