I’ve had dentures for a long time. While I’ve never loved them, they’ve always stayed fairly in place. Not anymore. They’re slipping all over the place. A few times they’ve even fallen out. I’m beginning to get paranoid. Is there any way to fix this or are they wearing out?
Mercy
Dear Mercy,
The problem isn’t necessarily that your dentures are wearing out, though I’m sure they’re getting close to the end of their useful life. However, what is wearing out is your jawbone.
When your teeth were extracted, your body recognized that you no longer had any teeth roots and decided your jawbone was now unnecessary. As a result, it began reabsorbing the minerals in your jawbone to use elsewhere in your body where it perceived they’d be more beneficial.
This slowly leaches the minerals, shrinking your jawbone a little bit at a time. In the dental industry, this is known as facial collapse. It’s why your dentures are slipping.
Soon you won’t be able to keep them in at all.
Implant Overdentures Can Help
Dental implants are a means of preventing facial collapse. They use a prosthetic tooth root, which can be made of either titanium or Zirconia. Then, after a healing period, a dental crown is placed on top. This is the top-of-the-line in modern tooth replacement options.
Getting one of these for every missing tooth would be completely unrealistic. It would cost a fortune. This is why we now use implant overdentures for patients in your situation.
Using four to six dental implants, you can secure a pair of dentures to your jaw. They’ll never slip again for the rest of your life.
Bone Grafting
Because you’ve lost so much bone structure, you very likely don’t have enough left to secure your dental implants. This is easily solved with a simple bone grafting procedure. It’s a one day out-patient process which will rebuilds the bone in your jaw so that you’re able to get the implants your jaw so desperately needs.
This blog is brought to you by San Antonio Dentist Dr. Imam.