If you have traditional dentures replacing your smile, you likely understand how challenging it can be to eat certain foods. Often, these dentures lack the stability of your natural teeth, which reduces the force of your bite. Without a strong bite, it’s much more difficult to break down tougher foods. Corn on the cob, steak, and even nuts or hard vegetables are often off the table, seriously limiting your choices. In some cases, loose dentures force patients like you to make changes to your diet, affecting your nutrition and overall health! Fortunately, dental implants provide a more secure solution. At Brockley Dental Center, we offer implant-retained dentures to restore your smile and your ability to eat the foods you love without hesitation!
Why Do Dentures Loosen Over Time?
Traditional dentures are designed to perfectly fit the contours of your mouth. When they first arrive, they’ll likely sit securely on your jawbone, providing stability and strength. Unfortunately, this fit isn’t built to last. Because dentures rely on your jaw for stability, they will always loosen over time due to bone resorption! This natural process occurs after tooth loss, causing the bone to deteriorate over time.
Natural teeth have important roots that extend into your jawbone, beneath your gums. These roots press into the bone when you bite or chew, stimulating the area to maintain bone health and density. When you lose teeth, you lose stimulation, resulting in a gradual loss of bone mass and volume. Bone resorption has unfortunate consequences, including:
- Wrinkling skin: As you lose bone support, the skin around your mouth may begin to wrinkle or sink inwards.
- Changing facial structure: While you may not notice it at first, your jawbone will slowly shift and change due to bone resorption. Eventually, you may notice that your entire facial structure is different.
- Floating dentures: Traditional dentures rely on your jaw for support. However, a shrinking jawbone makes for a poor foundation, causing loose or floating dentures!
Replacing your missing tooth roots is the only way to stop bone resorption in its tracks! Unfortunately, traditional restorations don’t replace teeth below the surface of your gums, allowing the resorption to continue. Only dental implants both restore your smile and prevent bone loss, as they act as artificial tooth roots in your jawbone!
The Stability of Implant-Retained Dentures
Implant-retained dentures are denture restorations that are stabilized in your jawbone with dental implants. By placing these titanium screws strategically around your jaw to evenly distribute the pressure of your bite, we can secure a denture on top of your implants for a stable smile.
However, these implants require ample jawbone, which those looking to replace teeth often lack. Fortunately, at Brockley Dental Center, we use mini dental implants! These are small and sleek dental implants that are much more accessible to those with bone resorption. Due to their smaller size, patients who’ve lost bone to bone are often still eligible for mini implants, even without additional procedures like a bone graft.
To place mini implants, we first use a local anesthetic to keep you calm and comfortable throughout the procedure. For patients who require it, we also offer sedation dentistry to ensure a smooth procedure. Once you’re ready, we create a small pilot hole in the gums and jaw, creating an opening for the slim implant. This process is minimally invasive, allowing for faster healing and even immediate stability!
After placing mini implants in your jawbone, they instantly stabilize enough to support a temporary restoration. These temporary implant-retained dentures are still functional, preserving the aesthetics of your smile and your ability to eat, although we recommend sticking with soft foods initially.
Our Implant-Retained Denture Options
When your gums heal fully, we’ll remove your temporary denture and supply you with a permanent version. At Brockley Dental Center, we offer a variety of implant-retained dentures with unique advantages!
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A roundhouse bridge has a unique horseshoe design that secures directly on your implants to provide a natural look. Snap-on denture: This denture resembles a traditional one, but without the bulky upper denture plate. By freeing your upper palate, a snap-on denture allows you to fully taste and enjoy the foods and drinks you love again! Snap-on dentures are removable at any time, allowing you to clean them easily and access hard-to-reach areas of your smile.
- Semi-removable roundhouse bridge: While technically a bridge, a roundhouse bridge functions as a denture because it replaces your entire smile. With a horseshoe-like design, this restoration often eliminates the need for a denture base, providing a sleek and natural-looking alternative. Semi-removable roundhouse bridges secure onto your mini implants, only to come off at routine visits at Brockley Dental Center.
- Non-removable roundhouse bridge: These implant-retained dentures look incredibly natural, as they’re made to closely resemble your natural smile in look and function. We cement the non-removable roundhouse bridge in place on your mini implants, never to come out. With incredible strength and stability, you can eat any food you want without hesitation!
At your consultation, we’ll discuss which implant-retained dentures are the best choice for your smile!
Secure Your Smile With Implant Dentures Today!
The effect that loose dentures have on your ability to eat can be devastating. Fortunately, Brockley Dental Center has mini implant-retained dentures that secure your smile and provide an effective bite! With implant dentures in place, you can restore your smile, prevent bone resorption, and eat the foods you love again.
Book an implant consultation today to start your journey to a more stable smile!
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