I have had dentures for 30 years. I have always hated them. I’ve recently learned about dental implants. I wish I had known about these years ago. They look so much more natural than my dentures do. Is it too late for me to get them? My dentures aren’t even staying in any longer anyway.
Marilyn
Dear Marilyn,
I am sorry you have spent all these years unhappy with your smile. I almost hate telling you this but both dental implants and beautiful dentures have been around for decades. The problem you actually faced is an inexperienced and unknowledgeable dentist.
The good news is it is not too late to fix this. You will need one additional procedure in order to ensure the procedure will be successful. You have been in dentures for so long that you’ve likely lost too much bone structure to adequately retain your dentures.
When your teeth were removed, your body began to resorb the minerals in your jawbone in order to use your body’s resources more efficiently. By the time you’ve been wearing dentures as long as you have, then you no longer even have enough jawbone to adequately support your dentures. This is known as facial collapse and is why your dentures are no longer staying in place.
You’ll have to build that bone back up. In order to do that, you will have a bone grafting procedure done. This will make sure you have an adequate replacement of the bone you lost during the last 30 years.
Once you have had time to heal from that it will be time to begin your dental implant procedure.
Implant Overdentures
What you will do is have between four to eight dental implants placed in each arch of your teeth. Then, once the new bone you have has had time to integrate with the implants your dentist can anchor a newly made set of dentures to them.
I know you were worried about dentures not looking great. That has more to do with the artistic ability of the dentist than the procedure itself. You can have a stunning smile.
What you’ll need to look for is a dentist who has both experience in dental implants and cosmetic dentistry training. Look for someone skilled in dental implants first. From there, you can check out their smile galleries to get an idea of the beauty of the work they’ve done.
This blog is brought to you by Hoffman Estates Dentist Dr. William Becker. We offer metal-free dentistry.