I have dentures for the first time and I’m really having some problems with them. It’s harder to eat food now. Plus, the hardness on the upper denture is very uncomfortable. Plus, food gets under it. This leads me to two questions. First, is there a way to get dentures more secure where I can chew more easily? Second, is there a softer upper denture? I’m fairly miserable. I never expected to lose my teeth in my late 30s, but cancer destroyed much more than my body. They say it was the treatments that did it to my teeth.
Tallis
Dear Tallis,
Implant Retained Dentures
I am glad you wrote. First, let me say that I am very sorry that you had to go through cancer. I hope you are in remission now. They are right that the cancer treatments were what likely led to your having so many problems with your teeth. I wish when you’d first been diagnosed your dentist would have given you some prescription fluoride to use at home and warned you that you’d need extra care. Though, maybe that happened and you still had problems. These treatments, though necessary do play havoc on your teeth.
As for your first question, even the best fitting dentures will reduce your chewing capacity by 50%. It is one of the many downsides to wearing dentures. Now, onto your second question. There is a soft liner, but not a soft support for the upper denture. The liner is used to help with a painful lower denture for those who have prominent bumps in the lower jawbone. The upper dentures appliance needs a hard frame work to help support your chewing, even though you do lose some of your capacity to chew.
Before you get depressed, there is a solution to both of these issues. In fact, at your age, I am surprised your dentist didn’t suggest it to begin with. Instead of removable dentures, I highly suggest, if you are able, to get implant supported dentures, sometimes called implant overdentures. These use four to six dental implants in each arch and then the dentures are anchored to them.
This solves the upper issue because you won’t need that hardware on your palette. The dentures are held in place by the dental implants themselves. It solves the chewing problem because the dentures are much more secure. You’ll find you can, once again, eat whatever you want.
Before and after the affects of facial collapse.
It also solves a problem that you don’t even realize is in your future. When you are wearing completely removable dentures, your body recognizes that you no longer have any teeth roots in your jaw, which means you don’t have to support those teeth. I mean, after all, they are extracted. As a means of being as efficient as possible with your body’s resources, it begins to resorb the minerals in your jawbone to use them elsewhere in your body.
Unfortunately, it has the dreadful side effect of shrinking your jawbone as it does that. After about ten or so years, you will no longer have enough jawbone left to even retain your dentures. Is is called facial collapse. Placing dental implants save this from happening because your body interprets the implants as teeth roots.
This blog is brought to you by Libertyville Dentist Dr. David Potts.