Reviews: I have had dentures for over twenty years. Several years ago, they started becoming tricky to keep in. Now they are not staying in at all. What do I do?
Cary
Dear Cary,
The Results of Facial Collapse
When your teeth are removed, your body recognized that. Its job is to be as efficient as possible with your body’s resources. Because of that, once you no longer have any tooth roots, your body interprets that as no longer needing a jawbone to keep those roots in place. As a result, it will resorb the minerals in your jawbone to use elsewhere in your body. This has the result of slowly shrinking your jawbone. Hopefully, your dentist warned you about this before you decided on dentures instead of your other options.
Where you are in this process is known as facial collapse. You now no longer have enough jawbone left to retain your dentures. Unfortunately, just getting new dentures won’t help. You are going to have to have some bone grafting done to build that back up. Once that happens, you have two choices.
Your first choice is to get dentures again. Just bear in mind that you are going to go back through the cycle of losing your jawbone again. Your second choice is to get implant-supported dentures.
How Implant Supported Dentures Prevent Facial Collapse
Implant overdentures work by having four to six dental implants in your jaw and then anchor your dentures to the implants. Having the implants in your jaw serves as prosthetic roots. Your body interprets that as having teeth and leaves your jaw intact.
Not only that, you will find all the problems you had with removable dentures disappear. There is no more slipping. Additionally, you will find your chewing capacity goes up significantly. This is because even your best fitting dentures will reduce your chewing capacity by at least 50%. You’ll be so excited to be able to eat whatever you want again.
This blog is brought to you by New Orleans Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Duane Delaune.
