What Are Dentures?
Dentures are removable sets of artificial teeth that are created for patients with multiple missing teeth. They are made of special material, featuring a gum attachment and a couple of fake teeth. For the artificial teeth on dentures, porcelain material is used. The porcelain is usually tooth-colored, making it easy to match the natural color of teeth. In other cases, especially for modern dentures, the artificial teeth feature a resin material that is more natural-looking than porcelain.
As for the gum attachment, it features flexible polymer material that makes it feel and look like natural gum tissue. Depending on how many teeth you are missing, a dentist in 78613 will either recommend a partial denture or complete dentures.
The Different Types of Dentures
Dentures are categorized differently, based on their uses in replacing missing teeth. The types are
- Immediate dentures – these are dentures that a dentist in Cedar Park TX installs on a patient immediately after their visit to the dental clinic. Usually, they are used before the gum tissue is properly healed, so that the patient does not have to go without teeth at any point. However, with time, as the gum tissue heals, it shrinks. The shrinkage can cause the dentures to be ill-fitting, and not too comfortable to wear. It is for this reason that immediate dentures are considered temporal.
- Conventional dentures – these are the permanent types of dentures. When you visit your dentist for dentures in Cedar Park, TX you have to wait a couple of weeks before your dentures are ready. Usually, conventional dentures are developed in a laboratory. The dentist takes impressions of your teeth and uses them to come up with a customized set of dentures for the perfect fit, unique to your mouth.
- Partial dentures – these are dentures used to replace several teeth that are missing. However, with partial dentures, the patient still has other natural teeth remaining.
- Complete dentures – they are dentures used for complete teeth restoration. The patient may have lost all teeth to an accident, a sports injury, or any other reason.
- Implant-supported dentures – whether complete or partial dentures, when implants are used, they are called implant-supported dentures. This is when a dentist near you installs a dental implant in your gum tissue to act as the support for your dentures. This way, you can be sure of their stability throughout.
What Are The Benefits of Dentures?
Dentures were known as the go-to solution for elderly people who lost teeth due to age. However, in the modern world, younger people can still benefit from dentures. It is a dental procedure that has several benefits, including the following:
- Cosmetic advantage – having multiple missing teeth is not cosmetically appealing. It makes patients shy off from laughing, smiling or even enjoying a productive social life. Besides, when several teeth are missing, the framework of the face is affected. People do not appreciate the role of teeth in holding the face in place until they are missing. Dentures serve as replacements for missing teeth to alleviate the appearance of patients. The advantage is that the dentures are made with tooth-colored materials, which makes them cosmetically appealing to use.
- Functional advantage – without teeth, basic life activities like talking or eating become a problem. Your teeth play a big part in word pronunciation as much as they do in digestion through chewing. Dentures help patients resume their usual lifestyle.
- A cheaper alternative – when you compare the cost of dentures to that of dental implants, you will find dentures more favorable. Implants are made of titanium posts, which are more expensive than dentures.
- Non-invasive alternative – dentures do not require surgical intervention. As soon as your dentist takes impressions of your teeth, you are good to go. Your dentures will be readied without going through the surgical procedures that come with dental implants or other dental treatments.
- The flexibility of use – it is not all the time that you will want to wear a dental appliance. With dentures, you have the flexibility to choose whether or not you wear them all day. However, for the first few weeks of getting them, your dentist might recommend wearing them all the time even when you sleep, for adjustability reasons. However, after that, you can choose when to wear them and remove them when you want.
