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Is It Possible to Get Dental Implants After Dentures?

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Hey, Can you help me? I’ve been wearing dentures for ten years and I really hate them. Is it too late for me to get dental implants?

Sandra

Dear Sandra,

Before and after facial collapse
Before and after facial collapse.

Yes, I can help you. Technically, it is never too late to get dental implants. However, because of the length of time that you have been in dentures, it is very likely that the beginning of facial collapse has started.

When your teeth were first removed, your body recognized that and began to resorb the minerals in your body in order to use them elsewhere. The reason for this is our bodies are amazingly efficient at preserving the resources we have. The downside to this is that the loss of the minerals means your jawbone is slowly shrinking. After ten years, you may have noticed that your dentures are slipping more than normal. In a few more years you’ll start having trouble keeping them in. This is facial collapse. I hope your dentist warned you about this before giving you dentures.

The good news is that there is a solution to facial collapse. What you will need is to have a bone grafting procedure done. This will build back up the bone structure that you’ve lost. Once that has healed, then you can start the dental implant procedure. Because this puts implants in your jawbone, it signals to your body that you still have teeth. As a result, it leaves the bone intact and you never have to worry about facial collapse again. You’ll need to give the implants time to integrate with the bone. This process is known as osseointegration. Once that is done, you can have dentures anchored to them. This is known as implant supported dentures, sometimes called implant overdentures.

This blog is brought to you by Auburn, AL Dentists Drs. Murphree and Yount.

Why Won’t My Denture Stay In?

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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,

Image of upper and lower dentures

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.

Before and after facial collapse
Before and after facial collapse.

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.

Is She Allergic to Her Dentures?

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Can you help me? I recently received some nice dentures. They fit very well so I’m hesitant to get rid of them, but I’m worried that I am allergic to them. Several hours after putting them in, my glands started swelling. The next day, the glands were severely swollen and I developed swelling around my eyes. I took some benadryl which seemed to temporarily alleviate some of the symptoms. But, the next day my throat started to swell. I took them out and left them out for a week. I went back to my dentist who adjusted the fit. They still fit great. I put them back in and the symptoms started all over again. Help! I don’t want to be without teeth. Am I allergic to dentures?

Karen

Dear Karen,

Image of upper and lower dentures

 

It does sound like you are allergic to dentures. This is nothing to be messed around with and I recommend not wearing them any further until this is figured out. Allergies can quickly become life threatening, even causing your throat to close up.

The first step will be to see an allergist to find out what material you are allergic to. One big possibility is something to do with the acrylic base. Some people can be allergic to the leftover monomer in it. Acrylic is first processed in its liquid form for dentures. The lab will use a chemical reaction that will harden the liquid turning from a monomer to a polymer. I don’t know what you remember from chemistry, but there is always some leftover monomer in this chemical reaction, which causes some people to have an allergic reaction.

There are a couple of solutions for this. The first is obviously just to re-make the denture using a different resin for the base. It does require the denture will have to be remade. Though that may worry you because you like the feel of this one so much, I feel confident if they could get your denture to fit so well this time, they can do it again.

A second option is to try to convert the leftover monomer. There is some research by the National Library of Medicine that says if you immerse the denture in very hot water for several hours, it will complete the conversion from monomer to polymer.

Start with an allergy test.

This blog is brought to you by Auburn, AL Dentist Dr. Alan Yount.

 

Dental Implant Is Loose?

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I had a tooth get knocked out and everyone told me the best replacement was a dental implant. I’ve only had it a few weeks and it feels loose. Am I going to lose my new tooth too?

Kaitlyn

Dear Kaitlyn,

dental implant diagram

 

I would go back to see the dentist who did your dental implant right away. There are two possibilities. One is that it is actually the dental implant crown that is loose and the dental implant itself is fine. This is the easiest possibility.

If, however, the dental implant itself is loose, that is a bigger problem. Placing dental implants is a very advanced procedure and not all dentists have the requisite training to do them well. I don’t know if you checked the dental implant qualifications of this dentist before the procedure or not, but I would take a look at them now.

Let’s say it is the implant itself. It will need to be removed and replaced. However, you can’t just replace the implant. Before that will be possible, you will need to have some bone grafting done in order to replace the bone structure you lost. Then, after a time of healing, you can have the implant replaced.

However, before you let this dentist replace your implant he or she needs to be able to tell you exactly why it failed. A loose implant usually means an infection or that you did not have enough bone to integrate with the implant to begin with. However, your dentist should have done diagnostics beforehand to make certain that you had enough support.

It is hard to tell you exactly what is going on without seeing you, but this should give you some idea. The important thing is that you get this evaluated right away.

This blog is brought to you by Auburn Dentist Dr. Yount.
Auburn College Dentist