Abbott Family Dentistry, LLC

Dentures refer to both fixed and removable appliances that replace missing teeth.  See my bridge page for details on fixed dentures.  This page covers removable dentures. Removable dentures can replace some or all of the teeth in a given dental arch.  A full denture replaces all the teeth on the arch and a partial denture replaces some of the teeth on dental arches that still have some teeth.  It is important to remember that once you have lost a tooth, the bone where the tooth used to be almost always gets smaller over time.  This means that a dentist may be able to make you a stable and well fitting denture now but in the years down the road, as the bone shrinks, so does the chance that your denture will work well.  For this reason, it is a good idea that if it is possible to retain and/or support a denture with implants, you should do so. Implants require enough bone so for the same reason that a denture may not work well later in life, an implant may not be possible, (remember you need enough bone).  For this reason, if you wait until you have to have an implant to help the denture work well, you may not have the bone to get the needed implant.  The more teeth a denture replaced, the less able that denture is to reproduce the bite force of the missing teeth.  For this reason, partial dentures combined with the remaining natural teeth chew better than full dentures do. 

***Dentures take time to make, if we plan ahead, I have the ability to start the denture process in the morning one day and delivery the finished denture in the afternoon the next day.  No corners are cut making these 2 day dentures!