Today we’re going to talk about adjusting to dentures and some tips for first-time wearers to make the process go smoother. So I’m going to divide this article into kind of two categories.
Number one, for the first time denture wearers, most likely going from having teeth that are either broken down, hurting you or missing the majority of your teeth to a full denture. So the second category is people that have just an off-the-shelf denture that doesn’t fit and doesn’t function well.
Common Problems with Off-the-Shelf Dentures
So let’s talk about that standard off the shelf denture that you got that was inexpensive and you thought it didn’t matter because you just needed some teeth. More likely than not, it doesn’t fit. It moves around, it kind of digs in. It’s painful. A lot of times you might even have to take it out to eat foods that you’re comfortable with just because you can’t function and it hurts to chew with. These are not normal things for a denture.
What a Properly Fitting Denture Should Do
A well-fitting custom denture should do a couple of things. Number one, it should allow you to chew and eat the whole spectrum of foods. So when I say foods, I mean from the soft mashed potatoes and apple sauce all the way up to steak, corn on the cob apples. These are all things that, with a properly fitting denture, and when you use them correctly, you should be able to function and eat basically anything you want to eat. So, a properly fitting and properly made set of dentures should feel very natural. It should feel like their natural extension of your mouth and your gums.
When you’re chewing and talking. You shouldn’t have to be worried that, oh my gosh, my teeth are going to flop out, or Oh my goodness, I’m going to bite my cheek. I’m going to bite my tongue. These are all things of an improperly fitting denture. A natural denture is going to allow you to chew and function, and focus on everything else you’re doing,g and not have to spend all your energy and intensity on just how those plastic pieces come together.
Dentures and Facial Support
The third thing that it properly fitting denture does is it actually supports your cheeks and your muscles. So not only does it stay in place to provide more of a fullness to your face, it also allows you to have a natural looking smile, a natural profile. One thing you’ll notice is that a lot of times when you don’t have a denture in and you’ve lost all those teeth, you have a really collapsed mid-face. And so it’s a very anesthetic, very common look for someone without teeth. And so a nice fitting set of dentures fills out the lower mouth and gives you a more natural appearance and profile.
The Importance of Tooth Placement in Dentures
And if you have a denture that’s not custom made for your specific face and your specific bite, a lot of times you can have either something that’s too small so you can’t even tell you have teeth in there or something that’s too big and it’s almost like you have an apple in your mouth and you’re just wide open. And in those situations, even when you try and talk and smile, your teeth can clack against each other. It’s unsightly. It’s very frustrating.
So another important aspect of a properly made denture is going to be the location of the teeth.
Speech and Dentures
It sounds really weird and out there, but it actually is really important because speech is dictated by the tongue and by the lip muscles and by where the teeth are.
And so if the teeth aren’t in the proper location, you can have a lot of issues. You can have slurring, you can have mumbling, you can have kind of lisping sounds as well. And those are all dictated by the shape and the anatomy of that denture. So if you just go and get something off the shelf, not something custom made for your actual mouth, and your speech is going to be severely impacted. So if you or someone you love has ill-fitting dentures and you can hear a lisp, like if they have trouble really pronouncing and having crisp, explosive sounds, it’s almost a clacking or a clicking. When the teeth come together, those are signs that the teeth aren’t custom made for them and they need a new set of dentures.
Transitioning to Dentures: The Process
Now I’d like to walk you through the process of going from having teeth or missing teeth or having failing teeth to having a well-fitting denture.
So this process is actually a long journey. And so for something like this, you really need to have a dental team that knows what they’re doing to help walk you through the process and make sure each step of the way you’re on the right path. A lot of our patients that come to see us have missing teeth, have broken down teeth, are in pain, are embarrassed about their teeth, and it’s reached the point where we can’t save those teeth.
Immediate Dentures and Healing
And at that point, the next step would be to schedule for an immediate denture. And this process basically involves coming in to see us. We do some impressions, we make a lot of measurements, we take pictures, we kind of design what the ideal immediate smile needs to be like. And then when you come back, generally about at least three to four weeks later, and you sit down with our surgeon and we extract the unhealthy teeth.
So for a denture, you need to extract all the teeth on the top or all the teeth on the bottom. And the day of surgery, we actually have those immediate dentures made and ready to go. So you come in with the teeth that you don’t like that are causing you pain that are unhealthy, our surgeon will take those teeth out and that same day will put the whole new set of immediate teeth in. And so what these immediate teeth do, I call ’em fancy band-aids, because what they do is they protect the extraction sites. So where you have those teeth taken out, you’ve got something covering them so you can chew and function right afterwards. But they’re aesthetic. They look like a nice set of teeth. So a lot of times you get a pretty significant smile upgrade the day of those extractions and the immediate dentures go into place and now they serve more purpose than just protect the extraction sites.
Like I said, they allow you to eat, but also whenever we do extractions, you’re going to have some swelling. The tissue’s going to swell up, the mouth is going to respond to the trauma of the extractions. And what those immediate dentures do is they contain that swelling and they kind of hold that down and kind of prevent a large amount of discomfort after the procedure. So that immediate denture is designed for the first three to four months of healing because over time, once we take those teeth out, the body’s very efficient. And so if you don’t have teeth, there’s no reason for the bone to be there. So we take the teeth out and the bone and tissue will actually remodel and kind of shrink down to a smaller size.
The First Weeks with Dentures
through this process of healing, and what I always tell patients is the first 10 to 14 days are the worst because you’re going from having teeth to not having teeth.
You’ve got this strange new appliance in your mouth, it’s going to feel big, it’s going to feel bulky. There’s definitely some getting used to because to be honest, you really have to train yourself how to eat. Again, you have to train yourself how to talk. You have to train yourself how to function with these new appliances in your mouth. And this whole time, for the first seven to 10 days, your mouth is sore, it’s irritated, it’s not a happy time for the mouth. And so those first 10 to 14 days are definitely the hardest. But the nice thing is once we reached that two-week mark and the sites where the teeth were taken out have healed over, I can put a soft liner in that denture and it fits so much more comfortably. And at that point on, that’s when the process gets a lot better.
Customizing Your Permanent Dentures
So you wear this immediate denture for about three to four months. We want to give that bone and tissue an adequate amount of time to heal. And at that point then we start the process of making your custom permanent set of dentures. And so this is about a five or six appointment process where we do a lot of measuring. We do a lot of analyzing, we do a lot of feedback from you. So one thing I like to tell my patients, so if you have pictures of when you were younger, that’s great. If you have pictures of even a celebrity or a smile that you see in a magazine, bring that along because the more information you can give us, the more feedback you can give us, the more I can create that custom smile for you. Because believe it or not, there’s probably over 70 or 80 different tooth shapes and sizes, and the most subtle little things can really give a lot of personality.
There’s a lot of masculinity or femininity in teeth, whether they’re curved or sharp. You can even set them up to look aggressive. You can set them up to look younger or older. So there’s a lot of different ways to set up teeth. The more feedback you give me, the more I can customize and make that perfect smile exactly what you want to see. Of course, shading wise, we’ve got the whole spectrum. If you want to look like you’ve got older coffee stain teeth, we can absolutely do that. If you want the bright Hollywood white knock you over, we can do that as well. Or if you just want the nice natural smile where people don’t even know you have a set of dentures, a lot of times that’s the shade we go with for most people. I want you to compare your experience with our office versus what you would get if you just bought some standard stock dentures somewhere else.
A lot of times they’re not custom made to you and the fit. While it may be okay, the teeth aren’t the right teeth, they’re not in the right place, they’re not in the right look, they’re not the right shape, and they’re not the right feel. One of the advantages of utilizing the system that we use in the protocol that we follow is that with all those multiple appointments we’re measuring every time, we’re making sure we’ve picked the right set of teeth so that when you do finally get those permanent set of teeth, you’ve got to a set that feels right, a set that looks right and allows you to function naturally. And as an added bonus, once the whole process is done and you’ve got the final set of teeth and you love them and we design them to last a long time, you can always keep those set of immediate dentures as a backup because that way, if anything ever happens, hopefully it won’t to those dentures if you drop ’em in the sink and the tooth breaks off, if your dog gets ahold of it and bites it and chews it up, if we have to repair those teeth, you’ve always got the backup set that you can wear comfortably.
Investing in Quality Dentures
While we’re working with the lab to fix the new set, I know that dentistry can be expensive and a new set of dentures is an investment, but I need you to look at it this way. How often do you use your teeth on a daily basis, from the beginning of the day when you get up, eating breakfast, you’re smiling, you’re talking, you’re interacting with people throughout the day, smiling, chewing, talking, seeing at church. There’s so many times where you’re using your teeth that if you go the cheaper route and you don’t invest the time and the finances into getting a quality made set of dentures, you’re really cutting yourself short. And I think the value of a well-made denture and the quality of life that you get from that cannot be overestimated. Two of the things that I love most in life are eating and talking.
And so the tying kind of measure in both those things is your mouth and your teeth. And I would hate for someone to try and cut some corners and save some money and really sacrifice their ability to enjoy two of those greatest things in life with a well-made set of dentures. You can talk to your friends, you can FaceTime your family, you can go out to dinner, you can have steak, you can have salad, you can have chicken, you can have anything you like, and that’s the value that you’re getting every day kind of grows on itself by going with a quality made set of dentures.
Conclusion
So if you find yourself in one of those two categories, whether you have teeth that need to be replaced and you’re looking for that next step of comfort in getting a new denture, or if you have an existing denture that you’re not happy with, whether it’s the function, the aesthetics, or a combination of those two, give us a call, drop a message in the comments below.
We’d love to have you come see us and I can talk to you and walk through your options and kind of show you the amazing world of dentures that we can create for you. And so whether you’re in Kentucky or New York or California, don’t feel like geography’s a reason not to come see us. We have a lot of patients actually fly in or travel long distances. We can work with your schedule. We can work with local accommodations. Don’t let that distance be something that stops you from coming to see us and get the smile you deserve. I’m Dr. Brett Langston. I’m here to help you watch your mouth.
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