Flexible Dentures - in Your Local Area

If Your Dentures Make Your Mouth Sore

Having dentures should not hurt. People who wear dentures may experience temporary oral irritation or soreness. Eating certain foods may cause temporary pain. For example, a seed or peanut may slip under a denture and cause irritation to the gum.

This type of irritation usually goes away after a few days once the source of trouble (in this case the seed or peanut) is removed. Often, it may be more comfortable to leave the denture out of the mouth during this healing.

Dentures are custom made specifically for your mouth; therefore, new dentures often require adjustments to areas that rest directly on the soft tissue. Sometimes, due to bony ledges and undercuts, dentures require alteration. To improve the balance and pressure of the denture during eating, the bite is sometimes adjusted.

Adjusting a denture requires a quick and simple dental visit. The denture dentist may use an indicator paste or marker on the irritated mouth tissue, which is then transferred to the denture upon placement, to determine the exact location on the denture that needs adjusting.

A rotary dental hand piece is used to contour the denture. Often, relief of an impinging denture improves comfort immediately; however, keeping the denture out of the mouth for a while may help the irritation or sore heal. After a few weeks, discomfort associated with a new denture often is eliminated and the denture functions without pain.

Over time, the mouth undergoes changes that can affect the fit of a denture. Since the bone and gum tissue of your mouth changes over time, it is important that denture wearers visit the denture dentist at least once a year for an oral examination, including an oral cancer examination.

A denture dentist can exam your mouth to determine the cause of your pain, evaluate your soreness and irritations, and adjust your denture. Depending upon the severity of the denture sore and the length of time the denture has not been in the mouth, it may be necessary to wear the denture the day before the dental visit so that the dentist can accurately resolve the problem. Often, a few denture adjustments will resolve discomfort associated with your denture.

Seeing a denture dentist can help improve the fit, function, and look of your denture, as well as detect any problems that are not related to the denture.

by Denise J. Fedele, D.M.D., M.S.

+Jim Du Molin is a leading Internet search expert helping individuals and families connect with the right dentist in their area. Visit his author page.

What To Do With The Broken Denture - Denture Repair

Even though dentures are fabricated from extremely durable materials, they will break, wear out, a tooth will come out, or their fit will change. Then its time for denture repair.

Accidents happen, dogs still like to chew on plates of the dental kind, and trash compacters have never taken kindly to dentures. In fact, it is frequently not a matter of "if," but rather a matter of "when" a denture will become broken, lost, or damaged beyond repair.

One can be assured that a problem will happen when least expected, and immediate, usually important, plans definitely will be altered unless a person is prepared.

Damaged Denture - How to Expect the Unexpected and Be Prepared

A short-term use duplicate denture will bridge the gap while a regular denture is being repaired, renovated, or replaced. Sometimes this type of denture is referred to as an "embarrassment denture" because it helps a person avoid the embarrassment of being without teeth in an emergency or during planned denture maintenance.

While this type of denture may be made at any time from an existing functional denture, it generally is fabricated immediately after a new denture is made. The embarrassment denture is neither as accurate nor as esthetic and durable as the original, but it is adequate and only meant for short-term use. The cost is generally considerably less than the original denture.

Such an interim prosthesis may be relined annually and adjusted in advance to fit the current changing shape of an individual's jaws, and therefore be ready to use at a moment's notice.

However, some individuals choose to have their embarrassment denture relined and adjusted only when they need the short-term denture. Following this latter course means that they will have to wait to wear their interim denture until an appointment can be scheduled with a dentist to complete the reline and any adjustments. But a reline for an embarrassment denture can be done in the dentist's office during a single appointment so a patient may leave with it refitted in the mouth.

In either case, a person would not be without a prosthesis while their regular denture is being worked on.

The Embarrassment Denture Facilitates Planned Periodic Maintenance

All dentures need to be periodically relined to accommodate the constant change in shape of a person's jaws. There are also times when the plastic body of a denture needs to be changed due to deterioration, or the entire denture replaced because of wear or poor fit from changing mouth conditions that can no longer be remedied by relining.

While relines can be completed in one appointment office visit, more durable relines may require that a dentist keep a denture for several days. Replacing the plastic body of a denture (called a rebase) takes several days and making a replacement denture takes several weeks.

It becomes easy to see how an embarrassment denture would solve being without one's regular denture for a period of time, even for planned maintenance, while getting on with one's life.

by Joseph J. Massad, D.D.S.

+Jim Du Molin is a leading Internet search expert helping individuals and families connect with the right dentist in their area. Visit his author page.