Are You a Candidate for Dentures? 

Have you lost all of your natural teeth due to gum disease, tooth decay or injury? If you have, then you know that without your teeth, eating and speaking are much more difficult. At Stonebrook Family Dental, you have options. Replacing your missing teeth will not only benefit your appearance and your health, but it will also improve your speech and your ability to process the food you eat. Read this to help determine if you are a good candidate for dentures or not. 

Causes of Missing Teeth 

The American College of Prosthodontists lists the common causes of missing teeth to be tooth decay, gum disease, and injury. However, it can also be genetic. Some people can be born without certain teeth. When this happens, it often affects generations of a family. 

The most common missing teeth are wisdom teeth, upper lateral incisors, and the second premolars/bicuspids. 

Risks of Missing Teeth

When you have missing teeth, you can expect to have challenges that affect how you talk and chew, but it can also impact your remaining teeth and cause them to shift, which in turn alters your facial appearance.

The American Academy of Periodontology explains that missing teeth will affect how your face looks, most commonly causing the skin around your mouth to sag because it’s not properly supported. Not only does this affect your oral and overall health, but it can also affect your emotional wellbeing, making you less confident about your smile and appearance. 

Dentures 

At Stonebrook Family Dental, you have two main categories of dentures that you can receive dependent on your individual requirements. Those two options are:

• Partial dentures, which are used when you are not missing all of your teeth, just some. Partial dentures are a solution when the remaining teeth in your mouth are still healthy. We always want you to be able to keep your natural teeth. With partial dentures, you can do just that. Partial dentures prevent the remaining teeth from drifting out of place over time. They are used to replace one or more teeth, but less than an entire arch. Partials are fastened by clasps that anchor the device to the neighboring remaining teeth. 
• Full dentures, also known as complete dentures, are used to replace an entire set of teeth — the lower, upper, or both sets of teeth. They are custom replacement teeth that fully restore your smile and correct your bite. Lower full dentures rest on the gums and are secured over the gums and jawbone, while upper full dentures are held in place by the suction created between the denture and the roof of your mouth. 

Who is a Candidate for Dentures?

The best candidates for this dental service are patients that are suffering from significant tooth loss as a result of an injury, genetics, or gum disease. However, in some instances, dentures might not be an option for certain patients. 

Patients who might not be a candidate for dentures are those who do not have enough healthy gum tissue and jawbone structure to support the dentures. If needed, however, these patients can restore the health of the gum tissue and bone structure to secure dentures in place at a later time. 

Those who receive dentures also have to be committed to their dental health routine and willing to properly care for their dentures and smile. If that’s not you, dentures might not be your best option for restoring your smile. 

Alternative Teeth Replacement Options

If you’re not a good candidate for dentures, don’t fret. You have other options here at Stonebrook Family Dental. Some other common restorative dentistry services we offer to help correct your smile include:

• Dental bridges, which are ideal for candidates who are only missing a couple of teeth. These bridges are used to fill the spaces left by missing teeth by connecting the teeth neighboring the gaps and using prosthetic teeth to fill the holes. 
• Dental implants are another teeth replacement option that are natural looking, strong, and secure. In this procedure, a titanium post is inserted into the jawbone. This will secure your new prosthetic tooth in your mouth. 

Make an Appointment with Dr. Kevin Varley and Stonebrook Family Dental

If you have one or more missing teeth and want to know how you can restore your smile, make an appointment with Dr. Kevin Varley and Stonebrook Family Dental to learn about your options. Conveniently located to service the communities of Aurora, Colorado, we’re here to restore your smile and confidence. Call us to make an appointment at (303)-872-7907.