Our teeth help is in chewing, eating, smiling, talking and play a significant role in our facial structure and appearance. But, what would happen if you lost all your teeth? Frightening right? Well don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Complete or full dentures are prosthetic devices that are provided to replace missing teeth.
Complete dentures are removable appliances that are supported by the surrounding hard and soft tissues. It is amazing that these complete dentures are supported by underlying bone, gums and soft tissues rather than other teeth, as all of them are missing.
The dentures today are manufactured from high-quality resin materials that ensure the individual is wearing comfortable new dentures that restore functionality and aesthetics to the individual wearing it.
How do you know if you need Dentures?
So, how does one know if they need dentures? Well, when you are missing all your teeth and find it difficult to eat food, speak, or are concerned about the aesthetics of the face, you need dentures!
When you visit our Dental Square clinic, the dentist will examine and evaluate the health of your gums and the underlying supporting bone structure to determine if you are the right candidate for complete dentures.
Once your dentist suggests the right type of full dentures for you based on the condition of your alveolar ridges (the bone structure visible in your mouth covered by gums), impressions or measurements are taken of them to make a mould or a cast from impression material.
The main need for denture is the loss of the teeth. Generally, it is inexpensive compared to other teeth replacement options.
How Will Dentures Help an Edentulous (having no teeth) Person?
Dentures are very important for persons with missing teeth or completely edentulous arches. Getting dentures help in the following:
Chewing and Eating: This is the primary function of teeth and replacement of missing teeth with complete denture help in effective chewing and biting.
Aesthetics: We don’t realise often but our teeth play a very important role in our facial structure, its form, shape and overall aesthetics of the individual. Missing teeth can give a sunken or drooping facial structure, which can be corrected by dentures.
Speech: Our teeth, along with the tongue and palate, play a crucial role in speech. Many syllables we pronounce require teeth to be present. But, in a person with missing teeth, speech is affected. Dentures, therefore, help restore speech and enable them to pronounce words that contain sibilants and fricatives.
Self-esteem and confidence: Our smile is intricately linked with our self-esteem. Individuals who have beautiful smiles are often more confident and have high self-esteem. While losing a tooth or all your teeth can impact your self-esteem, dentures can help boost confidence and restore your self-esteem.
What are the steps taken to make dentures?
The process of getting your complete denture can be a relatively long one as compared to other dental treatment options. It is a multi-step procedure that needs multiple sittings.
- The first step in the fabrication of your new dentures is making a primary impression of the upper and lower ridges. These are used to create a plaster model that resemble your upper and lower teeth-less arches.
- These models are now used to fabricate customized trays to take the next set of impressions, also called as final impressions.
Prior to taking the final impression a step called as “border moulding” is done, which helps your dentist record the movements of your cheeks, and other soft tissues to ensure your dentures achieve maximum retention and stability. - After border moulding is completed, a final impression is made. This impression is used to prepare a stronger cast on which the final fabrication of your dentures will begin.
- Since there are no teeth in your mouth, there is no way to determine the relative position of your jaws with each other. To determine this, a jaw relation is taken on wax rims.
- This jaw relation is used to set your teeth in wax and the adjustments are made by placing these rims in your mouth. Once the bite, the appearance and speech have been adjusted and finalized by the dentist, the dentures are sent for their final fabrication step to the dental laboratory.
- The finished and polished final dentures arrive and are ready to be delivered to you. It can take a while to get adjusted to your new dentures but the dentists at Dental Square are always available to help you out.