Dentures – Clarendon Hills, IL
A Tried-and-True Tooth Loss Solution
If you’ve ever suffered tooth loss, you know the condition lowers your quality of life. After all, it results in unsightly tooth gaps, makes everyday tasks harder, and can cause oral health issues. Still, you don’t have to live with such complications – get dentures from Clarendon Hills! As provided by Dr. Hong and his team, these prosthetic teeth restore grins quickly and easily. To learn what they’re all about, just keep reading or book a visit to our practice.
Who is a Good Candidate for Dentures?
Naturally, ideal denture candidates are the ones who suffer from missing teeth. They’re people who, due to lacking chompers, struggle to eat, speak, or even smile.
Of course, you can only confirm candidacy with a dental consultation. This visit lets Dr. Hong assess your health and see if dentures could work for you. Should he conclude that they would, he and our team will draft a custom treatment plan for your unique needs.
Alternatively, our office may recommend an alternative to denture treatment. That possibility is more likely if you don’t lack all of the teeth along an arch.
Types of Dentures
If Dr. Hong approves, the consultation visit will also decide the type of denture that best suits you. There’s more than one kind, you see, and they have different qualifying factors. As such, the consult will ultimately suggest one of three possible dentures:
Partial Dentures
As you might expect, partial dentures only replace a few missing teeth. Consequently, they clasp onto surrounding chompers to keep themselves secure.
A partial denture consists of a gum-colored base and a set of artificial teeth. Thanks to its high-quality materials, it’ll usually blend seamlessly with the rest of your smile.
Full Dentures
Full dentures, per their name, replace all the teeth along an arch. They thus don’t use other pearly whites to steady themselves. Rather, they stay in place by relying on natural suction instead.
Ultimately, a full denture’s base doesn’t differ much from a partial denture's. The former also consists of acrylic, gum-colored resins. That said, this type of denture does fit snugly over the gums.
Implant Dentures
Compared to partial and full models, implant dentures are more stable. Patients, then, often choose them when they want a more permanent option.
Implant dentures uniquely feature dental implants — restorations that fuse with the jaw. Therefore, they have unique benefits, like preventing (and reversing) jawbone erosion. More notably, their fusion ensures they don’t slip or fall from your mouth.
Benefits of Dentures
When you’re missing multiple teeth, it can be difficult to complete many daily tasks like eating, speaking clearly, and smiling confidently. Dentures can be a life-changing tooth replacement option for anyone missing several, most of, or all their natural teeth. Thanks to this restoration’s ability to improve your quality of life, if you’ve suffered from tooth loss, dentures can truly give your smile a second chance by providing the following incredible benefits.
Psychological Benefits
Many people have difficulty accepting their tooth loss. Along with this, they may experience negative effects on their self-esteem and social life, as well as an increased risk of experiencing sadness and depression.
When you’re insecure about tooth loss, you may be less inclined to engage in social activities, increasing feelings of isolation. However, by restoring the appearance and function of your smile with dentures, you are likely to experience an increase in your confidence and self-esteem. In fact, your dentures can help reduce the anxieties about your appearance, speech articulation, chewing ability, and much more while you’re engaging socially.
Clearer Enunciation
Missing teeth can make it difficult to speak clearly. To pronounce and perform certain words, your lips and tongue need to be positioned properly. Without the ability to touch your tongue to specific teeth, some words can be very difficult to say clearly.
Thankfully, your dentures act as your missing teeth, thereby allowing you to enunciate more clearly while speaking. Following a short adjustment period and a little bit of practice, speaking with your new prosthetics will come naturally.
Improves Nutrition
Because many nutritious foods are tougher in texture, including certain vegetables, fruits, and healthy proteins, they can be difficult to eat if you’re missing teeth. Worse yet, when you’re unable to chew your food thoroughly due to tooth loss, it can increase your risk of indigestion and malnutrition.
The good news is that with dentures, your improved ability to chew will allow you to eat a more expansive diet full of healthy, delicious foods, ultimately helping your body receive the essential nutrients it needs for optimal overall health.
Preserves Oral Health
If you still have any remaining natural teeth, your new dentures can help you prevent them from shifting to other areas of the mouth. Dentures can also bear some of the weight of regular chewing, thereby reducing the wear and tear on your existing teeth.
Expands Opportunity
Your smile is your calling card, and certainly one of the first things people notice about you. When it comes to important career events like job interviews, sales, and getting promotions, it’s vital to make an excellent first impression, and having a complete smile is a definite advantage. In fact, according to a 2019 study, the probability of being employed was negatively associated with poor oral health.
Dentures FAQs
Do Dentures Break Easily?
Dentures are quite durable, but they are not invincible and will eventually need to be replaced. If a restoration receives excellent care, it can usually last between five and seven years, but accidents happen. Dentures may need replacement if they are dropped while being cleaned, inserted or removed, and they can also break due to fitting poorly or developing tiny scratches or notches in their bases. Even if your dentures receive the best possible care, they can still wear out due to the stress of repeated use.
What Should I Do if My Dentures Break?
The most serious problem dentures can have is “prosthesis fracture,” meaning the appliances breaks in half. Prosthesis fracture is more likely to happen to top dentures, but it can happen to bottom ones as well. The team at Clarendon Hills Dental can often repair or adjust dentures with minor damage, but it will eventually be necessary to replace your restoration completely. In some cases, we may have to send your dentures to a trusted dental lab for a reline. Please contact our office in Clarendon Hills when you notice that your appliance has been damaged.
Can Dentures Lose Their Fit Over Time?
Each set of dentures from our office in Clarendon Hills is completely customized to fit the patient’s mouth, so your appliance should feel incredibly comfortable after you get used to wearing it. However, traditional dentures will lose their fit over time due to erosion of their components and the changing shape of the mouth, and you may notice that your appliance does not fit as well after several years. Continuing to wear poorly fitting dentures can lead to a host of oral health issues such as gum injuries and infections as well as bad breath and difficulty speaking. If your dentures are not fitting well, take them to our practice so we can adjust or replace them as necessary. You may be able to help your dentures fit better by using an adhesive, but you may have to try several different brands before finding a product that works for you.
Am I Too Young to Get Dentures?
Tooth loss is not inevitable for most patients, but this oral health problem is much more common among older people. About two-thirds of American adults between the ages of 40 and 64 and one third of those between the ages of 20 and 39 are missing at least one tooth. Luckily, dentures can be an excellent option for adults of any age to achieve complete and beautiful smiles after tooth loss, so please contact our office if you’d like to learn more about how these magnificent restorations can help you.