Dentures

What are dentures?

Dentures are removable oral appliances that replace multiple teeth or your entire smile. There have been massive technological improvements to dentures in recent years, with today’s custom-designed prosthetics looking more natural and fitting more comfortably than ever.

Jones Family Dental works with a local lab that designs and fabricates dentures for the practice, ensuring that your dentures have a bespoke and artisan touch in their creation.

Why should I get dentures?

Dentures can improve your smile, appearance, and overall oral health in a number of different ways, such as:

• Improving your ability to speak properly
• Making it easier for you to eat solid foods
• Enhancing your appearance by filling in holes in your smile
• Maintaining the shape and appearance of your face by preventing your facial and jaw muscles from atrophy and sagging

Dentures can also be used to replace troublesome teeth with a strong and healthy alternative that can benefit your overall oral health.

What types of dentures are available?

Jones Family Dental offers the two main categories of dentures: Complete and partial.

Complete dentures

Complete dentures replace all of the teeth in your jaw. If one or both of your jaws doesn’t have any teeth or if you’re planning on having extractions of your remaining teeth, complete dentures are for you.

Upper jaw complete dentures have an acrylic base that covers the roof of your mouth, while lower jaw complete dentures look like a horseshoe in order to accommodate your tongue. Both types of dentures are held in place on your gums by suction or dental adhesive.

Partial dentures

If you still have healthy teeth left in your smile, Dr. Jones might recommend that you get partial dentures.

The base of partial dentures fits over the areas of your gums where you no longer have teeth but opens up around the areas where you do still have teeth, allowing those teeth to come through and work side-by-side with the artificial teeth on the partial dentures.

The greatest benefit of partial dentures is that they allow you to keep your healthy, natural teeth in place, which provides a number of oral health benefits, such as stimulating your jawbone and preserving your bone and muscle tissue.

How do dentures feel?

Dentures might feel slightly awkward or uncomfortable for the first few weeks or months that you wear them. Some patients report that they feel loose or bulky in their mouths. This is a common and expected sensation, as the muscles in your mouth need some time to learn how to hold them in place and work with them to improve your oral abilities.

During this adjustment period, you might notice an increased flow of saliva. Some patients also experience temporary nausea or mild irritation and soreness.

It will take some time to get comfortable speaking and eating with dentures in your mouth, but once you acclimate, they’ll feel incredibly natural, and you won’t be able to remember how you ever functioned without them!

To get started with your custom dentures today, or to hear more about how they can improve your quality of life, make an appointment with the compassionate dental experts at Jones Family Dental. You can book your visit by calling the office or scheduling online.