We’ve heard similar complaints more than once from patients who are sick and tired of their dentures.
We’ve heard countless stories about dentures slipping out of place when someone was trying to speak (including in front of large groups). We’ve heard of multiple instances when taking a bite ended up pulling “teeth” loose.
And we have heard of many people who just don’t think their dentures fit comfortably anymore.
The good thing for those patients is that they came to our dentist office in West Chester, PA.
Our dentist, K.C. Sykora, DDS, offers the All-on-4® dental implant procedure, which is a simple method that resolves the problems mentioned above.
Why Dentures Cause Problems
More than 30 million people in the United States are missing at least one row of teeth. For a long time, dentures were the only teeth replacement option they had.
Still today, many people settle for dentures when they could have something so much better, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
For now, we want to explain the limitations of dentures and why they can become worse over time.
First and foremost, dentures are not secure. Dentures rest over your gums, and as you know your gums are moist. (At least, they should be. Dry mouth can create other problems.)
That alone may help explain why dentures slip out of position from time to time. It’s sort of like if you had to walk over a wet floor all day. You probably wouldn’t be surprised if you fell occasionally in those conditions.
Talking and eating (especially foods that are harder to bite or chew) can cause your dentures to come out of place. Denture adhesives can provide temporary security, but some adhesives can interfere with the taste of your food. It’s not a perfect solution by any means.
Even so, studies have shown that people with dentures have about one-fourth the biting force of people with all their natural teeth. That would certainly help explain why biting into a crisp apple is so much harder with dentures.
As most people who have worn dentures for a long time can tell you, they start to fit differently over time. There’s a good reason for that — your jaw.
When you first got your dentures, they should have been designed to fit in your mouth. One issue with that is that your dentures rest on your gums.
There is nothing to replace the roots of your missing teeth. Roots anchored your teeth in your jaw, and they stimulated your jawbone. This led to new bone tissue growth, and that kept your jaw healthy and strong.
Without roots, your jaw does not make new tissue like it should. Over time this results in your jaw losing bone mass and becoming smaller. In that process, your jaw changes shape. That affect the shape of your gums, and that affect how well your dentures fit.
How To Fix Those Problems
All those problems can be addressed with dental implants, and one of the best ways to get the benefits of implant-supported dentures is the All-on-4 procedure.
We noted earlier that roots stimulated your jaw to create new bone tissue. Dental implants were created to replace your missing roots and to provide the stimulation needed to keep your jaw strong.
Through the All-on-4 dental implant procedure, we use just four strategically-place implants to make your denture more secure and more stable.
With All-on-4, two implants are placed vertically in the front of your mouth. The other two implants are placed diagonally toward the back of your jaw. This allows you to get the maximum benefit with fewer implants that are used in other procedures.
One of the reasons we like All-on-4 is that we are able to give you a set of temporary replacement teeth on the same day you get your implants. With many implant placement, you have to wait months as your jaw heals before you can attach the dentures.
Your jaw will still need time to heal with All-on-4, but you won’t have to walk about with an empty month until then. When you are ready, we will attach your permanent teeth replacements to your dental implants.
By then, you should feel confident that they will remain in place. You can eat any food that you could when you had all your teeth, and you can be comforted knowing that your implants are helping to keep your jaw healthy and strong.
Do It ‘4’ Yourself
Talk to K.C. Sykora, DDS, if you already have dentures or you are thinking of getting them in the near future. Find out if the All-on-4 procedure could work for you.
Call our office at 610-314-7534 or use our online form to schedule a consultation at our West Chester, PA, dentist office.
We look forward to helping you.