I had a denture done quite a few years ago with no problem. It was time to redo it. My dentist gave me one but it just would not stay in. My dentist suggested I give it a few weeks for my gums to adjust to the new denture but that was no help. He had me come in and then said that he thought the problem was likely with my bite. To fix that, he ground down some of the teeth, including the molars, which are now pretty much just nubs. This hasn’t helped either and he is again telling me to give my gums time to adjust. I don’t know what to do.
Cassie
Dear Cassie,
Your dentist’s instruction of saying to let the gums adjust is a stall tactic and will do nothing. There are a couple of possibilities here for what is going on with your dentures. You didn’t say if it was an upper denture or lower denture giving you the problem. If it is the upper denture then giving you a reline may help.
However, let me explain what could be going wrong with that. To get a really accurate impression, your dentist would need to do a two-step impression. First, a heavy impression material is used in order to register where the borders of the denture will be, in a process called border molding. The border is the part of the denture responsible for the suction, which is how an upper denture is kept in place.
This will be followed by a light body material that fills up the interior part of the impression. That will give a good model for all the soft tissue. Sometimes a dentist will cut corners using a single step impression with a medium-body material. This is not as accurate and could be what is happening to you. If you decide to try a reline, be sure to ask for the two-step impression.
If the problem is actually your lower dentures, then a reline or even redoing the denture won’t be helpful. Your lower dentures just rest on the ridge of your jawbone. If you’ve had your dentures for a while, as it sounds like you have, then you are likely struggling with the beginnings of facial collapse. When your teeth were removed, your body began to resorb the minerals in your jawbone. The longer you are in dentures, the more your jawbone shrinks. Somewhere between 10-20 years, depending on how fast your resorption is, you will no longer have enough jawbone to retain your denture.
The solution to this is to first have bone grafting done in order to build up the missing bone. After that, you have two choices. First, you can get dentures again, but be aware that the whole process of facial collapse will begin again. If you want to prevent that, then you will need to have dental implants placed and then have your denture anchored to the implants. Because the dental implants function as tooth roots, it signals to your body that your jawbone is still needed and it will leave it intact.
I hope this helps.
This blog is brought to you by Auburn, AL Dentists Drs. Murphree and Yount.