Tag Archives: problems with dentures

Dental Implants

How Far Back Should Dentures Go?

I’m new to this whole dentures thing. In all honestly, I never thought I’d be without teeth at my age (42). I need to know how far back they are supposed to go. The problem I am facing is that my lower dentures do not cover the area where my wisdom teeth were and I’m chewing on gums. It’s uncomfortable. I spoke to my dentist and he told me he put them back as far as they go. How do people with dentures deal with the wisdom tooth area?

Todd

Dear Todd,

Man holding his jaw in pain

Dentures have problems. Even the best fitting dentures will reduce your chewing capacity by 50%. While you may never be completely thrilled with your dentures, there are some things your dentist can do to make this as pleasant as possible for you. Fixing this issue is one of them.

Your dentures should go past the wisdom tooth area and into the beginnning of the retromolar pad. Covering the retromolar pad completely is a bad idea because you will end up with interferance with your upper dentures, but going onto the beginning of it is fine and preferred.

So if your dentures can cover your wisdom teeth, why is your dentist acting like it can’t? While I cannot read your dentist’s mind, my suspicion is that he does not want to admit it can be fixed because fixing it means re-doing the denture completely.

If you have already paid for these, you won’t really have any leverage. You could show him this blog post and appeal to his integrity. If that does not work then you can threaten to share your experience on the review sites. This will impact  his business and he’ll know that.

An Additional Problem with Dentures

Before and after facial collapse
An Example of Facial Collapse

I am concerned that you have dentures at such a young age. Hopefully, your dentist warned you about the danger of facial collapse when you wear dentures for years.

When your teeth were first extracted, your body immediately began resorbing the minerals in your jawbone. It does this in order to be as efficient as possible with your body’s resources. Unfortunately, after about ten or so years you will no longer have enough jawbone left to support your denture. This is known in dental circles as facial collapse. The good news is there is a way to prevent it.

Preventing Facial Collapse

Implant Overdentures
Fixed implant bridge

If you place dental implants into your jawbone and then anchor your denture to them, which is a fixed implant bridge, not only will your dentures be completely secure but it will also prevent facial collapse. The implants serve as prosthetic tooth roots and signal to your body that your minerals are needed so that your jawbone can retain your teeth.

This blog is brought to you by Lafayette, LA Dentist Drs. Foreman and Thimmesch.

Dental Implants

How Can I Keep My Face From Collapsing with Dentures

I am only 32-years-old and have recently been diagnosed with a severe calcium deficiency. My dentist said this is why my teeth are always falling apart. He wants to extract the rest of my teeth and give me dentures. I have heard that getting dentures can make your face collapse, which makes you look like a grandmother. I still have two toddlers. I want to look like their mother, NOT their grandmother. Is there anything I can do which will help prevent this from happening? I am getting treatment for my calcium deficiency, but my dentist says it is too late for what is going on with my teeth.

Avery

Dear Avery,

images of before and after facial collapse

For those who are unaware, facial collapse is something that happens when you get dentures. As a result of no longer having teeth, your body immediately begins resorbing the minerals in your jawbone to use elsewhere, as a means of being efficient with your body’s resources. After all, you don’t have teeth to support any longer so you no longer need that bone.

The problem with that is after ten or so years, you no longer have enough jawbone left to support your dentures and end up looking like the woman on the left side of the picture above. This woman now looks decades older than she really is.

While there is a way to prevent this that I will go over, I don’t think you will need to have your teeth extracted. Certainly not all of them. I have no idea why your dentist is blaming your calcium deficiency for your teeth issues. That has zero impact on what is going on with your teeth now.

Your teeth are fully formed so developing a calcium deficiency in adulthood will not impact the health of your teeth. It can cause cramps, nerve damage, and osteoporosis. So why is your dentist saying this? I’m only guessing here, but dentists have different levels of willingness to fight to save teeth. Yours seems to be on the low end and all he wants to do is extract them and be done.

In your place, I would look for a dentist who is willing to put in the work to save your teeth. Don’t get anything done until you get a second opinion. See another dentist for a cleaning and check up and get their unbiased opinion. Do not tell them what your other dentist said. Just let them examine you and give their recommendations.

Preventing Facial Collapse

Implant overdentures illustation

For those who do have to have all their teeth extracted, there is a way to prevent facial collapse. If you have dental implants placed, it signals to your brain that there are still roots of your teeth there and therefore it will not resorb any of the minerals from your bone, thereby leaving it completely intact.

Once the implants are placed and integrated with your bone, then your dentist can anchor a set of dentures to them. These are known as implant overdentures and will be completely secure, unlike removable dentures.

This blog is brought to you by Lafayette, LA Dentists Drs. Foreman and Thimmesch.

Dentures

Can I Get Gold Teeth on Dentures?

I’m only 49 but I’m about to get dentures. I’m tired of these teeth hurting me, I’m ready to be rid of them! I’ve never had dentures before, so I’m kind of excited at the thought of looking good. I was wondering though, do they ever make them with gold-outlined teeth on the front? I just want the upper front two done. I love how that looks but I haven’t seen anyone with that in their dentures yet. So I didn’t know if it was something I could even have done.

Sasha

Dear Sasha,

Dentures

I’m glad you wrote. The short answer is yes, you can have gold teeth set in your new denture. There are a number of variations, from full gold crowns to small amounts that hardly show at all. It will be important that you are very specific with your dentist regarding exactly what your expectations are. The safest option would be to bring in a photo of what you want the teeth to look like to avoid any miscommunication.

As you might guess, adding gold to the denture teeth adds extra expense and your fee will be higher than that of a typical denture. This fee will vary according to the amount of teeth involved and the gold required to cover them.

Understanding Dentures

Before and after facial collapse
Before and After Facial Collapse

I know your teeth are killing you and you are ready to be rid of them, but I want to make sure you understand what you are getting into with dentures. Even the best-fitting dentures will reduce your chewing capacity by 50%.

However, the bigger issue is bone resorption. When your teeth are removed your body recognizes that and immediately begins to resorb the minerals in your body in order to use your resources most effectively. While great stewardship for our body’s resources, it will have the unfortunate effect of shrinking your jawbone. After ten or so years, you will not have enough jawbone left to retain your dentures. Plus, the loss of bone makes you look a couple of decades older than you are.

There is a Way to Prevent Facial Collapse

If you have dental implants placed then your body will interpret that as you still having tooth roots there which need the bone to keep them secure. This will prevent the bone loss from occuring. You can have implant supported dentures placed. This uses a minimum of four dental implants and then when the bone has had time to integrate with the implants a denture can be anchored to them. Not only does this prevent facial collapse, but it is completely secure. You will have no slipping or falling out. You can eat anything you want.

If you absolutely cannot save your teeth. This is what I’d recommend. Because of how young you are, completely removable dentures will be a disaster for you long term.

This blog is brought to you by Lafayette, LA Dentists Drs. Foreman and Thimmesch.

Sedation Dentist

Discouraged About My Teeth

I have had trouble with my teeth my entire life. I started needing root canal treatments in my teen years. My dentists always assumed I was not taking care of my teeth. This was absolutely not true. I brush my teeth twice a day AND floss. I have done this since I was a kid. Despite that, I always have tons of cavities. Yet, friends of mine that hardly care about their teeth seem to skate by cavity free. One of my low points was my sophomore year of college. One of my front teeth had a root canal treatment in my teen years. However, my parents could not afford to get a crown put on it. Here I am, year two in my university with a tooth which had turned gray. As if that wasn’t bad enough, my tooth literally crumbled. I was humiliated with half a tooth in the front of my mouth. I was afraid to speak and never smiled. Eventually, I saved up enough to get a dental crown from a dentist within walking distance of my dorm. But, the crown doesn’t match any of my other teeth and looks obviously fake. Fast forward. I’m married and my husband has some dental insurance. I went to see a dentist and he said that my mouth was a mess and I should consider just extracting my teeth and getting dentures. I’m only 27 years old and have spent the last two days crying at the idea. Is there no other solution for someone in my situation?

Callie

Dear Callie,

Woman with beautiful smile

I am sorry you have been faced with either lazy or judgmental dentists. Believe it or not, most dentists went into their field because they want to help people. You’ve seemed to have gotten a couple of duds. I am going to be honest with you and say that your current dentist is not going to be the best dentist for you.

Some patients, like yourself, can do everything right and still end up with high maintenance teeth. It’s the genetic lottery and you didn’t get the big prize. However, there are a few things you can do to help yourself.

Do NOT Get Dentures

before and after facial collpase
Before and After Facial Collapse
Whatever you do, please do not get your teeth extracted and get dentures. Once your teeth are removed, your body will immediately begin to resorb the minerals in your jawbone to use elsewhere in your body.

This will have the side effect of shrinking your jawbone. After ten or so years, you will no longer have enough jawbone left to keep your dentures in place. Not to mention that it will age your appearance by decades. This is totally avoidable and I don’t want you to have to face such severe consequences when there are options.

Find a Sedation Dentist Willing to Invest in Your Teeth

The first thing I want you to do is find another dentist, one who is totally willing to invest as much work as necessary to fix your teeth. Ideally, you should look for a sedation dentist. The benefit to this, aside from anxiety-free/pain-free appointments, is that it will allow you to get more work done during each appointment. This enables you to catch up faster.

A Simple Step You Can Take

Most people think oral hygiene is all they need to keep their cavities at bay. The truth is, however, that brushing generally only gets to the smooth surfaces of your teeth. In order to get into all those cracks and crevices, you need your saliva to have time to do the beavy lifting. Our saliva is loaded with bacteria fighting minerals. However, if you snack a lot it doesn’t have enough time to do the work. If possible, limit your eating to three times a day and only one snack. This gives your saliva more time to work. Doing this simple step will allow you to reduce your chance of cavities.

This blog is brought to you by Lafayette, LA Dentists Drs. Foreman and Thimmesch.

Dental Implants

Should My Husband Get All-On-Four Dental Implants?

My husband needs to replace his bottom teeth. His upper teeth have been gone for a while and he has dentures there. We were told that you shouldn’t do dentures on bottom teeth because they won’t stay in the way the top ones do. Our dentist said he needs to get all-on-4 dental implants. I just want to explore if there are other options before we make a decision?

Pricilla

Dear Pricilla,

All-on-4 Dental Implants

I am curious why that is the only option he gave your husband. A dentist is ethically obligated to give his or her patients all of their options. He is correct that dentures are a bad idea on bottom teeth. While it is true that dentures will struggle to stay in on the lower arch, that does not happen right away. This is an issue because of bone resorption.

When his teeth are removed, his body recognizes that and begins to resorb the minerals in his jawbone in an effort to be as efficient as possible with his body’s resources. The big problem with that is after ten or so years, he will no longer have enough jawbone left to retain his dentures. This is known as facial collapse.

This bone structure is important no matter what tooth replacement option he chooses.

All-on-4 Dental implants (pictured above) are what dentists will sometimes offer to patients who have lost some jawbone structure but still want dental implants. However, there are other options.

Implant-supported denture

The first thing to find out is whether or not he has lost bone structure. If he hasn’t, then his best option is to get an implant overdenture. This uses between for and six dental implants and then anchors a denture to them.

If he is missing bone, depending on the amount, he has two choices. First, he can have the all-on-4 procedure his dentist suggested, as long as he hasn’t lost too much bone. The one downside to this procedure, however, is that if one implant fails, the entire unit has to be redone. A second option, no matter how much bone he’s lost, is to have a bone grafting procedure done to build it back up. Then, he can do implant overdentures if he wants. He could get a denture too, but bear in mind he will end up with facial collapse. Having dental implants in the jaw bone, prevents that from happening.

This blog is brought to you by Lafayette, LA Dentists Drs. Foreman and Thimmesch.

Dental Implants

Dental Implants Keep Falling Out

I have dentures and have for the last year. I thought I would adapt to them but really hated them. I finally decided nothing was going to change so I opted to get implant-supported dentures. I had six implants placed. In less than a week two of them have fallen out and I can tell a third one is loose. Here are my questions. Should I have to pay for the ones that came out? Do you think more of them will come out? Is there any way this can be fixed?

Clarence

Dear Clarence,

Implant Overdentures
Implant Overdentures

I will say right off the bat that you made a good choice in what procedure you chose to replace your removable dentures. Dental implants are the closest thing to having healthy, natural teeth in your mouth again.

Your big problem here is your dentist. He doesn’t seem to have any idea what he is doing. With dentists who know what they are doing, there is a 95% success rate. Your dentist has about a 50% success rate and that is just in the first week. Plus, I do not have high hopes for the remainder of your implants. I would not expect them to last.

To answer your questions, no, you should not have to pay for the dental implants that fell out. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think you should hold out much hope on the others. What I would like you to do is see a dentist with more expertise. I’d like him or her to examine your dental implants and tell you the cause of the dental implant failure.

Reasons for Dental Implant Failure

There are quite a few reasons why dental implants can fail. Here are just a few:

  • One of the major causes of dental implant failure is infection. Often this is the result of poorly fitting dentures.
  • Some dentists try to increase their profits by purchasing sub standard implants from overseas.
  • Inadequate bone support. This is completely preventable if your dentist does the correct diagnostic procedures. If you know ahead of time (as you should from the diagnostics) that you do not have enough bone support, there is a simple solution of having a bone grafting procedure done.
  • Incorrect placement of the implant. It is important that your dentist does 3-dimensional diagnostics, such as a CT scan so that the dental implant is placed correctly. Without that, there can be poor placement that results in serious damage such as damaging a nerve or perforating your sinus cavity.
  • Premature loading—It is important that you wait for your implants to integrate wtih your jawbone. If you don’t and put weight on it with the dental crown before integration, it will cause your implants to fail.

Once you know the cause of the dental implant failure, then you can formulate a plan to get the implants you need for your implant overdentures. I think you will be better off getting a full refund from your dentist and then following the treatment plan of a dentist with a lot more experience who can do this properly.

Then, you will have a stable smile that you will be proud to share.

This blog is brought to you by Lafayette, LA Dentist Drs. Foreman and Thimmesch.