The impact of tooth loss is felt on multiple fronts. Beyond the change to your appearance, missing teeth can also affect your quality of life. Fortunately, you can say goodbye to the gaps in your smile via tooth replacement with dentures in Jacksonville. At Carlson Dental Group, we offer high-quality and affordable dentures so you can enjoy a complete, fully functional set of teeth again without breaking the bank. If you’d like to learn more about this tooth-replacement solution, continue reading or schedule a consultation with our team today!
Truthfully, almost any person missing several, most, or all their teeth is a viable candidate for dentures. During your consultation, we’ll conduct a thorough oral examination to determine whether this solution is right for you. If you have any preexisting oral health issues like tooth decay or gum disease, you’ll need to have them addressed before you can move forward with the process of getting dentures. Your mouth must be in optimal condition to support your new prosthetics!
Whether you’re missing just a few or every tooth in your arches, leaving gaps in your smile can have a devastating impact on you. First, your ability to eat and speak clearly can become severely impaired, affecting your mental health and overall well-being. In addition, any remaining teeth can wander out of alignment, increasing the chances of more tooth loss in the future and jaw pain. Aesthetically, large holes in your smile can create distance between you and others, lower your self-confidence, and leave you with a sunken, older appearance that will only become more pronounced with time. No matter how you look at it, missing teeth need to be replaced!
Compared to dental implants and bridges, which come with a longer list of prerequisites, the “requirements” for dentures are simple and few. In fact, basically, all you need to be a denture candidate is a generally healthy mouth without cavities, gum disease, or other issues. If you do have one of these problems, our team at Khoi Dental Group can treat it as quickly as possible to get you in a better position for these prosthetic teeth.
Before automatically turning to partial or full dentures, you need to consider all your options and their pros and cons. For instance, if you are missing two adjacent teeth and you have two healthy teeth on either side of the gap, you may want to consider getting a bridge over a partial denture. In another situation, if you would like your dentures to feel more like natural teeth and last significantly longer, you should think about attaching your prosthetic teeth to implants. These considerations are another reason why your consultation is so important! We can help you determine which replacement option would best suit your needs and your smile.
During your initial consultation, your dentist in Jacksonville will evaluate your needs and recommend one of the following options:
If you only have a few missing teeth, partials may be a good option to consider. They replace teeth that are on opposite sides of your mouth and keep the existing teeth from shifting around. Partial dentures are custom-made to fit your mouth perfectly and seamlessly complete your smile. They’re attached to your remaining natural teeth with clasps.
Full dentures are ideal for patients missing an entire arch of teeth. They’re designed using a gum-colored base and enamel-colored replacement teeth for a more natural appearance. Unlike partials, they’re held in place using natural suction or denture adhesive.
If you want a smile that’s long-lasting and as stable as possible, you should consider getting implant dentures. The prosthetic is attached to titanium dental implants that are surgically inserted into the jawbone. Once fully healed, you’ll be able to enjoy unmatched chewing and functionality. Plus, your new-and-improved grin can last several decades if properly cared for!
If you’ve recently decided to replace your missing teeth with dentures, you’re probably wondering what the process of getting them looks like. Crafting a customized set of dentures involves molding high-quality materials to match the specific dimensions of your mouth to create an incredibly comfortable and lifelike restoration. Here’s a brief breakdown of how dentures are manufactured for our patients in Jacksonville.
A denture consists of a strong base and the artificial teeth mounted upon it. Here are overviews of these components.
Base: This structure provides the foundation of the appliance. Bases can be made from materials like acrylic, nylon, porcelain, resin, and metal, and full dentures are usually made from acrylic since it can be easily matched to the color of a patient’s natural gum tissue. The bases of partial dentures are sometimes made of nylon and often include metal clips so they can connect with the natural teeth.
Artificial teeth: The artificial teeth of a denture are often made from lifelike resin or porcelain, but porcelain is the most common material since it is quite durable and looks and feels like natural enamel. However, porcelain is hard enough to injure remaining real teeth, so it’s usually only used for full dentures.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to how we customize each denture to match the patient’s mouth.
Step 1: Our dentist will take impressions of the patient’s bite and may also measure the jaw. This will provide the data necessary to ensure the final denture fits properly.
Step 2: A plaster cast made from the impressions will be sent to a trusted dental laboratory where a skilled technician will create a wax replica of the gumline.
Step 3: Artificial teeth made from acrylic resin will be set in the wax replica and secured in place using a special device known as an articulator. The technician will then carve the wax to make it look like the patient’s natural gums.
Step 4: These wax dentures will be sent back to our office so the patient can try them on. If our dentist and the patient give their approval, the appliance will be sent back to the lab so it can be finalized. In the meantime, the patient may receive temporary dentures to wear.
Step 5: Back at the dental lab, the technician will cast the dentures in plaster before boiling them in a flask to remove the wax.
Step 6: Before injecting acrylic into the flask, the technician will put holes in the teeth to help them connect and apply a liquid separator to prevent this material from sticking to the plaster.
Step 7: The technician will carefully remove the plaster to reveal the final appliance, which will then be placed in an ultrasonic bath for cleaning.
Step 8: The technician will trim away any excess acrylic and polish the dentures to perfection.
Step 9: The completed set of dentures will be sent back to our office so the patient can try them on. After any necessary adjustments, the patient will be set to go on their way and enjoy their new smile.
You may experience mild soreness and have difficulty speaking and chewing when you first start wearing dentures. However, these problems will diminish as you get more practice wearing them. You can speed up this acclimation process by sticking to soft foods, exercising your facial muscles, and reading out loud to get practice speaking. However, please contact our office if the discomfort persists so we can make appropriate adjustments.
By choosing to get dentures, you will enjoy several benefits including:
We understand the toll that tooth loss can take on both your physical and mental wellbeing; fortunately, dentures in Jacksonville can help! We want to be as supportive as possible throughout this process, as we know the importance of having a healthy, beautiful, and functional smile. We’ve gathered a few of the most frequently asked questions that we receive about dentures along with their respective answers so that you can feel positive about restoring your smile and confidence. If you have any other questions or would like to arrange a consultation, feel free to give us a call!
Simply put, tooth loss usually qualifies you for dentures, but depending on your individual situation, there are primarily three different types of dentures: partial dentures, full dentures, and implant dentures. Partials are preferable for patients who still have most of their teeth but only need a few replaced. Full dentures are recommended if you’ve lost all of your teeth, or if you don’t have enough natural teeth remaining that are worth salvaging. And implant dentures rely on posts that are surgically embedded into your jawbone to support the new prosthetics. The only way to accurately determine which type of denture is suitable for your smile is by having us closely inspect your situation.
If you end up needing teeth extracted prior to receiving dentures, you’ll likely experience some discomfort following the surgery. This can be addressed by taking your prescribed and over-the-counter pain medication as directed, and you should begin feeling better after a few days. It’s also not uncommon to experience mild soreness after receiving dentures, as your body will need to go through an adjustment period (usually a few weeks, but it varies from person to person). If the pain continues to persist, you should contact us as soon as possible—the dentures might not have been fitted properly, or there might be an underlying oral health issue that needs to be treated.
Even though they effectively restore your lost pearly whites, dentures are also accompanied by certain dietary restrictions. Sticky foods like peanut butter and certain types of candy can pull your dentures out of place, making chewing difficult but also allowing food particles to become trapped under the dentures and irritating your gums. Some foods also contain small pieces that dentures cannot chew easily—things like popcorn, shelled nuts, and even the seeds on certain types of bread can be problematic. Tough meats like steak and pork chops also require an excessive amount of chewing, and that can put a lot of stress on both your dentures and your gums.
We strongly advise against sleeping while wearing your dentures. Even though you can technically sleep with them in, we recommend taking them out before bedtime in order to give your gum tissue and jaw a chance to rest after supporting them throughout the day. This habit encourages healthy blood flow in your gums, which is vital for their wellness. Not to mention, removing your dentures before bedtime also gives you the perfect opportunity to soak them in a cleaning solution or water, which will keep them clean and moist so that they don’t become disfigured.